Rosner's work has been influential in a number of international legislative and legal decisions regarding industrial safety and health, health policy and race relations. The 2005 edition of his book, Deadly Dust, co-authored with Gerald Markowitz, was one of the major stimuli of a five-year, international study of mining and health standards through collaboration with the Agence National Francais, the French equivalent of the National Science Foundation. This collaboration brings together experts from countries around the world to discuss the variety of historical factors that have shaped international policies regarding silicosis, a deadly lung disease affecting workers in a host of industries. In its earlier edition, this book led to the bringing together of over 600 public health, industry and governmental experts from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mining Safety and Health Administration and elsewhere in a National Conference on Silicosis in Washington. This conference led the secretary of Labor to identify silicosis as a disease that should be eliminated in the coming years and the banning of certain dangerous practices in a variety of industries. In addition, he has been a consultant and expert witness in lead poisoning cases, on behalf of the State of Rhode Island in its landmark suit against the lead pigment industry and individual plaintiffs injured by lead from paint on the walls of the nation's housing. With Gerald Markowitz, Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York, and support from the National Science Foundation, he is completed a new book: Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children, which traces the recent implications of lowered blood lead levels on public health research and practice.
Published works
He is author and editor of ten books; including A Once Charitable Enterprise, Hives of Sickness:' Epidemics and Public Health in New York City, and Health Care in America: Essays in Social History. In addition, he has co-authored and edited with Gerald Markowitz numerous books and articles, including Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth Century America,, Children, Race, and Power: Kenneth and Mamie Clarks’ Northside Center, ; Dying for Work, and “Slaves of the Depression,” Workers’ Letters About Life on the Job,. Along with James Colgrove and Gerald Markowitz he co-edited The Contested Boundaries of Public Health which appeared from Rutgers University Press in 2008. He and Gerald Markowitz have authored ' and Are We Ready? Public Health Since 9/11. His newest book ' appeared in 2013 from the University of California Press/Milbank Fund.''
In addition to numerous grants, he has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and a Josiah Macy Fellow. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scholar's Prize from the City University, the Viseltear Prize for Outstanding Work in the History of Public Health from the APHA and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Massachusetts. He has also been honored at the Awards Dinner of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health and he and Gerald Markowitz have been awarded the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lectureship “For Outstanding Occupational Health, Safety, and Environmental Journalism by the American Industrial Hygiene Association.”
