Judith Kasper

Judith D. Kasper, a highly regarded Johns Hopkins public health researcher who co-conducted one of the most significant studies on aging "ever conducted in the U.S. and in the world," according to a colleague, died of a heart attack Aug. 4th in her longtime Bolton Hill home. She was 72.

"Judy and I were colleagues and friends," said Ellen J. MacKenzie, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a statement released by the university. "I always took joy in her can-do attitude, her kindness, love of life, and good humor."

The sole author of two books and joint author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, Judy was best known for her pathbreaking work on the consequences of high rates of uninsurance and, with professor emeritus and chair in Health Policy and Management Karen Davis, her insightful analysis for the Commonwealth Fund Commission on Elderly People Living Alone," she wrote.

Luigi Ferrucci, who is a geriatrician and an epidemiologist and chief of the Longitudinal Studies Section at the National Institute on Aging and is the director of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, was one of Dr. Kasper's collaborators. "Judith realized that the science of disability with aging and caregiving patterns had made progress but a national view of this enormous occurrence was missing," Dr. Ferrucci wrote in an email from Italy. "Thus, she designed a representative study for the National Health and Aging Trends Study in collaboration with her colleague Vicki A. Freedman. The study is revolutionary in many ways, for the representativeness of the sample, the sample size, the solid conceptualization of disability, the data sharing policy, the solid implementation also used a good advisory committee."

The former Judith Ann Dellinger, daughter of Myrl Dellinger, a banker, and his wife, Maxine E. Dellinger, a registered nurse, was born in Dodge City, Kansas, and was raised in Wilmore, Kansas, where she graduated from Coldwater High School.

She later graduated with honors and distinction in 1970 from the University of Kansas with a double major in sociology and American studies. While at Kansas, she met and fell in love with Rob Kasper, a classmate, who she married in 1971. Mr. Kasper, a former columnist with The Baltimore Sun, survives her.

After graduating from the University of Kansas the couple moved to Chicago to attend graduate school. She earned a master's degree in 1973 and her Ph.D. in 1976 in sociology, both from the University of Chicago, and her husband earned a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

After Chicago, they lived in Louisville, Kentucky, before coming to Maryland in 1977 when Mr. Kasper joined the staff of The Sun and Dr. Kasper held positions at the National Center for Health Services Research, now called the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in North Bethesda, the Office of Health Care Financing Administration, and the Commonwealth Fund Commission on Elderly People Living Alone while conducting research on behalf of The Kaiser Foundation.

In 1987, Dr. Kasper joined Johns Hopkins and eventually became a full professor in the Bloomberg School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management. Dr. Kasper had not retired at her death.

In her private life, Dr. Kasper was a well-known figure in her neighborhood where she had served as president of the Bolton Hill Swim and Tennis Club.

A lifelong pianist, she specialized in four-handed pieces in which she and a partner would sit at the keyboard and play favorite works by Haydn, Brahms, Schumann, William Bolcom and Darius Milhaud, her husband said. She and her partner would invite neighbors and friends to concerts played in the Kasper's double parlor front rooms.

A memorial service for Dr. Kasper will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 15th at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church at 1320 Park Ave. in Bolton Hill. The service will also be streamed on the church's website.

In addition to her husband, Dr. Kasper is survived by two sons, Matthew Kasper of Singapore and Michael Kasper of New York City; a sister, Jeanne Kapp of Tucson, Arizona; and three grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers the family asks that donations in her name be given to the Brown Memorial Tutoring Program.