Physician, gerontologist, psychiatrist, public servant and Pulitzer-Prize winning author, Dr. Robert N. Butler (1927–2010) was involved in a broad array of social and health issues. He was perhaps best known for his advocacy of the medical and social needs and rights of the elderly and his research on healthy aging and the dementias. In 1975 he became the founding director of the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, where he remained until 1982. In 1982, he founded the Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, the first department of geriatrics in a U.S. medical school, and served as Chairman and Brookdale Professor until 1995. In 1995 he founded and became President and CEO of the International Longevity Center (ILC-U.S.), a policy research and education center, while continuing as Professor of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai. He was also Co-Chair of the Alliance for Health and the Future of the International Longevity Center which focuses upon Europe. 

 

Dr. Butler was a principal investigator of one of the first interdisciplinary, comprehensive, longitudinal studies of healthy community-residing older persons, conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (1955-1966), which resulted in the landmark books Human Aging I and II . It was found that much attributed to old age is in fact a function of disease, social-economic adversity and even personality. This resulted in a different vision of old age. This work also set the stage for the later concepts of "productive aging" and "successful aging." 

 

This earlier research helped establish the fact that senility is not inevitable with aging, but is, instead, a consequence of disease. Later at the National Institute on Aging he identified Alzheimer's Disease as a national research priority. In addition, Dr. Butler helped found the Alzheimer's Disease Association, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the American Federation for Aging Research and the Alliance for Aging Research. 

 

In 1990, he established the U.S. branch of the International Longevity Center (ILC) at the Mount Sinai Medical Center . In 1998 it became a separate 501(C)(3) institution affiliated with Mount Sinai . There are ILC centers in Tokyo , London , Paris , Santo Domingo and Pune , India . They conduct studies of the impact of the unprecedented aging of populations and longevity upon society and its institutions - upon the lives of older persons and children, the economy, productivity, and health care systems in varied countries. He has been a frequent advisor to the World Health Organization. 

 

In 1976, Dr. Butler won the Pulitzer Prize in the nonfiction category for Why Survive? Being Old in America. He is coauthor (with Myrna I. Lewis and Trey Sunderland) of Aging and Mental Health (5th edition, Allyn & Bacon, 1998) and with Myrna I. Lewis of The New Love & Sex After 60 (4 th edition, 2002). He was medical editor-in-chief of Geriatrics , a journal for primary care physicians, 1986 to 2000. Dr. Butler often consults for television and radio. He is the author of some 300 scientific and medical articles. 

 

Dr. Butler was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. He was also a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. He was a member of the first Physician Payment Review Commission, an agency of the U.S. Congress, 1986-89. He was a founding Fellow of the American Geriatrics Society and vice-chairman of the Alliance for Aging Research. He served as Chair, Advisory Committee, 1995 White House Conference on Aging. He served as member (1986-) and then Chair (1994-) of the Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Life Foundation Awards for Medical Research. He was a member of the Advisory Committee, Project on Death In America of the Open Society Institute (George Soros, Founder). He was a consultant to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, the Commonwealth Fund, the Brookdale Foundation, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and numerous other organizations. He served on the National Advisory Committees of the Physicians for Human Rights, the National Women's Health Resource Center and the Mildred and Claude Pepper Foundation, among other organizations. 

 

Butler received honorary degrees from the University of Gothenburg ( Sweden ) and the University of Southern California as well as numerous other awards such as the Lienhard Medal of the Institute of Medicine and the Heinz Award for the Human Condition. 

 

He introduced the concepts of "Life Review" (1961), "Ageism" (1968), "Productive Aging" (1983) and "Shortgevity" (2003). 

 

During his career as a physician, he had a variety of experiences in health and human services, including public health work, biomedical research, private medical practice, administration and management, and academe. He was involved in research planning including aging and the NIH women's health research initiative.