Antonia C. Novello Papers Now Open for Research

By James Labosier and John P. Rees ~

A new archival collection, the Antonia C. Novello Papers, is now available at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The collection includes documents from the period 1969–2008, including her time as Surgeon General, and will be of interest to researchers exploring national public health policy.

Antonia Novello, born in Puerto Rico in 1944, was the first woman and the first Hispanic person to serve as United States Surgeon General. Throughout her childhood, Novello suffered from a medical condition that could only be corrected with surgery. Because her family could not afford the long trip to the hospital, she spent part of every summer getting interim treatment in a local clinic. It was only after two surgeries, at age 18 and 20, that the condition was finally corrected. By the time she was a teenager, she had already decided to be a doctor so that she could help other sick children.

Novello received her medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico in 1970. After continuing her studies in pediatric medicine at the University of Michigan and Georgetown University, Dr. Novello briefly operated a private pediatrics practice in Springfield, Virginia. In 1979, she joined the Public Health Service as a project officer at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases. In 1986, she became deputy director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where she garnered national recognition for her work as coordinator for AIDS Research.

Throughout this time, Novello continued to work in pediatrics at Georgetown University Hospital, and in 1982 she earned her degree in public health from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. On assignment with the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, she helped draft legislation for the Organ Transplantation Procurement Act of 1984. Novello was then appointed U.S. Surgeon General in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush and served until 1993. During her tenure as Surgeon General, Novello’s policy and advocacy issues focused primarily on topics such as the health of women, children, and minorities, underage drinking, smoking, and AIDS research.

After serving as Surgeon General, Dr. Novello became a special representative to United Nations Children’s Fund from 1993–1996, where she expanded her efforts to address the health and nutritional needs of women, children, and adolescents to a global scale. She also continued her work with the U.S. Public Health Service and worked as a visiting professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins School of Health and Hygiene, during which time she advised on health services for poor communities. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1998, Novello organized an unprecedented meeting between Surgeon General David Satcher and seven others, besides herself, who had held the office.

In 1999, Governor George Pataki nominated her to be commissioner of health for the state of New York, where she headed one of the largest public health agencies in the country. As part of her oversight of Medicaid and Medicare standards and hospital and nursing home regulation, she focused on minority health care access. She also coordinated the public health response to the 9/11 attack as well as subsequent bioterrorism preparedness efforts. Novello’s final professional position was as a public health policy advisor to Florida Hospital in Orlando, Florida.

The Antonia C. Novello Papers collection at the National Library of Medicine holds speeches, presentations, subject files, electronic born digital files, professional conference and meeting materials, awards, and personal biographical materials that document Dr. Antonia Novello’s professional public health and public service career. It includes materials on topics such as the health of women, children, minorities, and underserved populations, underage drinking, smoking, HIV/AIDS research, and responses to the September 11 attacks in New York. This archive mostly contains documents about Novello’s professional work and public service. The largest portion of the material relates to her tenure as New York State Commissioner of Health. It is primarily arranged chronologically according to Novello’s professional career path.

To learn more about the collection, visit the Antonia C. Novello Papers Finding Aid.

James Labosier is an archivist recently retired from the Collection Branch of the User Services and Collection Division at the National Library of Medicine.

John Rees is the Archives Team Lead in the Collection Branch of the User Services and Collection Division at the National Library of Medicine.