Dr. Lester Breslow, a public health leader whose research gave
mathematical proof to the notion that people can live longer and
healthier by changing habits like smoking, diet and sleep, died
Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97. The University of
California, Los Angeles, where Dr. Breslow was a former dean of
the Fielding School of Public Health, announced the death. Dr.
Breslow’s most lauded accomplishment was a study of 6,928 people
in Alameda County, Calif., that examined their behavior over
intervals of up to 20 years. It used quantitative analysis to
prove that a 45-year-old with at least six of the seven healthy
habits Dr. Breslow chose as important had a life expectancy 11
years longer than someone with three or fewer. Over a 70-year
career, Dr. Breslow helped expand the very definition of public
health, from the historical concentration on communicable
disease to a new concern with individual behavior and the
effects of community and environment. As people lived longer and
had more cancer and