March 24, 2011
We were tremendously saddened by the recent news of the passing of Philip A. Phil Musgrove on March 21, 2011. A leading public health economist, deputy editor for Health Affairs, and close friend and colleague of CDDEP, Phil will be greatly missed.
Health Affairs has established a memorial website for Phil, and posted the following in his memory:
Health Affairs journal announced today that Deputy Editor Philip A. Musgrove, 70, an economist and leading expert in global health and a cherished colleague, died in a tragic boating accident at Iguazu Falls in Argentina on Monday, March 21, 2011. He is survived by his wife, Rosa Amalia Viana Musgrove; two children, Anthony Gordan Viana Musgrove and Marilia Elizabeth Viana Musgrove; his brother, John Gordan Musgrove, and his sister-in-law Kathryn H. Musgrove, MD, of Houston Texas. He is also mourned by his many friends and colleagues and his close companion, Elinor Schwartz, who was injured in the boating accident.
Words can’t express our shock and grief at the loss of Phil, said Health Affairs editor-in-chief Susan Dentzer. His expertise in the economics of global health and development was profound. He was a generous and caring colleague, who always had a moment to help anyone on our team grapple with any economic or statistical issue. We were all the beneficiaries of his talents, wisdom, and friendship, and will miss him utterly.
Health Affairs executive editor, Don Metz, added, Phil’s passing is a terrible loss to his family, the journal, and the health policy community. Phil had deep knowledge of many subjects, but what I’ll remember most is his generous nature and his deep commitment to improving the lives of others through his work as an economist and editor.
According to reports carried by the Associated Press and CNN, and additional information supplied by John Musgrove, Phil and Elinor Schwartz were among a group of people (variously reported as 8 or 10) on a rubber raft visiting the falls on Monday, March 21, at around 11 am. The boat trip to see the waterfalls from up close, called the Great Adventure (La Gran Aventura) is offered by Iguaz Jungle S.A., one of the concessionary companies working within the national park. Somehow the boat was pushed up against rocks such that the occupants were thrown into the churning water.
Phil and an American marine, Laura Matejik Eberts, 28, died; Eberts apparently drowned, and Phil sustained a serious head injury and was transported to a hospital in Foz do Igua’u, Brazil, where he died. The other occupants clambered up onto the rocks and were rescued. According to CNN, the rescue operation was carried out jointly by the naval prefecture, the national park employees, voluntary firefighters, provincial police, civil defense, and the emergency response team from the local hospital in Puerto Iguazu. Two helicopters from the Brazilian company Helisur lifted the victims from the rocky isle within the waterfalls area.
The investigation as to the causes of the accident is under way.
Phil, who lived in Rockville, MD, joined Health Affairs in 2005 as a deputy editor in charge of global health coverage, which has been largely supported by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From 2002-05, Phil worked as an editor at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health on the Disease Control Priorities Project. Prior to that, he was a principal economist at the World Bank, from which he retired in 2002. He was especially expert in health systems in Latin America, serving from 1990-92 in the Bank s Technical Department, Latin America and Caribbean Region, and in 1992-93 on the Bank s World Development Report. From early 1996 to mid-1998 he worked in the Bank s Resident Mission in Brasilia, Brazil. In 1999-2001 he was seconded by the Bank to the World Health Organization, where he worked as editor on the World Health Report 2000 Health Systems: Improving Performance.
From 1982 to 1990 Musgrove was Advisor in Health Economics at the Pan American Health Organization. Before joining PAHO, he was a Consultant to the World Bank s Living Standards Measurement Study, and before that, from 1966?68 and again from 1971?80, Technical Coordinator in the ECIEL Program of Joint Studies of Latin American Economic Integration and a member of the staff of the Brookings Institution. In 1977-78, he was a Research Associate with Resources for the Future. He has taught full time (as visiting professor) at the University of Florida, and part time at Johns Hopkins University s School of Advanced International Studies, George Washington University, and American University.
Phil also lectured, sometimes at the invitation of the US State Department, at numerous Latin American universities and research institutions. Among his publications are: Consumer Behavior in Latin America (Brookings Institution, 1978); The General Theory of Gerrymandering (Sage, 1977); Fighting Malnutrition: Evaluation of Brazilian Food and Nutrition Programs (World Bank, 1989); Feeding Latin America s Children (World Bank, 1991); Public and Private Roles in Health: Theory and Financing Patterns (World Bank, 1996); and more than 50 articles in economics and health journals and chapters in 20 books.
Phil was co?author of Natural Resources in Latin American Economic Development (with Joseph Grunwald; Johns Hopkins, 1970); Income and Demographic Effects on the Structure of Consumer Expenditure in the US, 1975?2025 (with Adele Shapanka; Resources for the Future, 1982); and Investing in Health: World Development Report 1993 (with several colleagues; World Bank, 1993). He was editor and co?author of Ingreso, Desigualdad y Pobreza en Am rica Latina (ECIEL Program, 1983) and Health Economics: Latin American Perspectives (Pan American Health Organization, 1989), and editor-in-chief and co-author of the World Health Report 2000 Health Systems: Improving Performance (with several colleagues, World Health Organization, 2000).
Phil received the PhD in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, following studies at Haverford College (BA, mathematics, 1962) and Princeton University (MPA, public affairs, 1964).
Phil s keen eye and his expertise in observing international health systems gave him insight into the importance of health and health care worldwide. In a 2006 Narrative Matters article in Health Affairs, Phil wrote of how he had rescued an American man who was having a heart attack and driven him to a hospital emergency department. He was appalled when a hospital staff member asked, almost immediately, Who s going to pay for him? Does he have insurance? The United States mostly manages to provide emergency care, but there s no uniform system to guarantee that it happens, let alone to ensure that everyone is covered for nonemergency medical needs, Phil wrote in his Narrative Matters article. In any comparison of health systems, the United States stands out at the extreme end of the spectrum, and not in a good way.
Visit the Health Affairs memorial page for Philip A. Musgrove.
