New England Journal of Medicine
November 28, 2013  Vol. 369 No. 22
http://www.nejm.org/toc/nejm/medical-journal

Medicine and Society
Contagious Diseases in the United States from 1888 to the Present
Willem G. van Panhuis, M.D., Ph.D., John Grefenstette, Ph.D., Su Yon Jung, Ph.D., Nian Shong Chok, M.Sc., Anne Cross, M.L.I.S., Heather Eng, B.A., Bruce Y. Lee, M.D., Vladimir Zadorozhny, Ph.D., Shawn Brown, Ph.D., Derek Cummings, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Donald S. Burke, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2013; 369:2152-2158November 28, 2013DOI: 10.1056/NEJMms1215400
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1215400

Summary
Using data from digitized weekly surveillance reports of notifiable diseases for U.S. cities and states for 1888 through 2011, the authors derived a quantitative history of disease reduction in the United States, focusing particularly on the effects of vaccination programs.