Obituary of Elmer Struening

Elmer L. Struening, Epidemiologist of Mental Health, Dies at 89 Elmer L. Struening, referred to as Moose by family, friends and colleagues, was born on January 14, 1924 to Marie and Adolph Struening in Springfield, Illinois. He and his family later moved to Seward, Nebraska, where they operated a family farm. As a young boy, Moose Struening received instruction in a one room school house. He attended Hastings College in Nebraska, but discontinued his education during WWII to serve in the army between 1943 and 1946. A recipient of the GI bill, Moose finished his undergraduate education at Nebraska University. He completed a PhD in Social Psychology at Purdue University in 1957. Dr. Struening left Indiana for New York after receiving a post-doctoral fellowship at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Montrose, New York. In 1960, Dr. Struening married Karen Sue Brehmer, originally of Highland Park, Illinois. Dr. Struening left the Veterans Administration to join the Albert Einstein Medical School. He also was involved in a project at Lincoln Hospital to deliver mental health services to underserved urban communities, an innovative approach at that time. In 1969, Dr. Struening began a 26-year affiliation with Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, where he held a faculty appointment, and the associated New York State Psychiatric Institute, where he served as Director of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders Research Department. Dr. Struening had a lifelong interest in how stigma impacts individuals who are struggling with mental illness and their caregivers. Together with Dr. Jacob Cohen, his mentor and colleague at Albert Einstein, Moose Struening developed the Opinions About Mental Illness (OMI) scale in 1967, which has become a widely used instrument for measuring attitudes toward the mentally ill. In 1975, Dr. Struening and his co-editor, Dr. Marcia Guttentag produced the Handbook of Evaluation Research, Volumes I and II, which became a standard text in the field. In the 1970s, when the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill led to a dramatic increase in homelessness, Dr. Struening conducted a number of federally funded studies to understand the needs of the homeless and to develop and evaluate government programs focused on helping the mentally ill homeless. Dr. Struening was a member of the board of the innovative "housing first" program, Pathways to Housing and a strong supporter of affordable housing. Dr. Struening also conducted research on anxiety, co-morbidity, and published studies involving community-level analyses in the field of public health. This work resulted in a number of publications and the development of the Community Health Atlas by the United Hospital Fund of New York, as well as technical innovations that contributed to the development of modern geographic information systems (GIS). In the early 1970s, recognizing the critical role that computers could play in modern research, Dr. Struening established the first research computing entity on the Columbia University Medical Center campus, which has since involved into Columbia's Data Coordinating Center. Dr. Struening was an enthusiastic and beloved teacher and mentor, and made significant contributions to Columbia's Psychiatric Epidemiology Training program at the Mailman School of Public Health. Many of his students have become leaders in the fields of epidemiology and mental health services research. In 1988, Dr. Struening received the Mrs. Swanson award from the Howard R. Davis Society for Knowledge Utilization and Planned Change. In 1991, he received an award for Outstanding Contributions to Research from the New York State Office of Mental Health and in 1996 he received the Carl Taube award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Mental Health Services Research from the American Public Health Association. Moose Struening died on Thursday, July 11, 2013, at the age of 89, leaving behind his wife, Karen Sue, two daughters, Aviva Lorene and Karen Marie Struening, his son-in-law James Clarke and two grandchildren, Emma and Ruth Clarke Struening. Dr. Struening is also survived by his older sister, Lorene Struening of Hooper, Nebraska. If you would like to make a donation in memory of Moose Struening, his family requests that you consider supporting one of the following organizations: the Alzhimer's Association (http://www.alz.org/hudsonvalley/in_my_community_donate.asp.), Hearthstone at the Esplanade (www.thehearth.org/whiteplains.html) or Picture the Homeless (www. Picturethehomeless.org/support.html.). Hearthstone is a residential facility for people with Alzhimer's disease.