BERKELEY -- Dorothy Bird Nyswander, a world leader in public health education, died peacefully in her home in Berkeley, Calif., Friday morning (Dec. 18).

She was 104.

Known and loved by generations of health professionals from New York to Hawaii and Indonesia to Brazil, Nyswander was active, although bedridden, up to the last days of her life, holding monthly seminars on public health in her home. So many people came to see her that they often had to schedule two weeks in advance to join the steady stream of visitors to her bedside.

Once asked the secret to her long life, Nyswander said spontaneously, "Have as much fun as you can and love people."

"I never have dieted or done anything just for health," she said. "I live and have a good time. Loving people is the secret of my life."

Nyswander came to the University of California, Berkeley in 1946, where she was one of three founders of the School of Public Health. A professor of public health until 1957, Nyswander pioneered the introduction of behavioral sciences into public health and trained a whole generation of practitioners in a new method of health education.

In the 1930s in New York, Nyswander conducted a landmark study of school health programs in Astoria, N.Y. Her analysis, "Solving School Health Problems," is still considered a basic text in the field.

The educator twice held high positions in federal programs. During the Depression, she headed the eleven-state western region for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), reporting directly to Harry Hopkins and Eleanor Roosevelt. Again, during World War II, she served with the Federal Works Agency, setting up nursery schools and childcare throughout the 15 northeastern states for children whose mothers worked in the war effort.

Following her retirement from UC Berkeley in 1957 when she was 62, Nyswander began a new international career with the World Health Organization. For the next 16 years, she traveled the globe setting up health education programs in a dozen countries.

At the age of 70, she slept on the cement floor of a rural health center in India with her rolled-up clothes for a pillow, talking to the men and women about family planning.

Born in Reno, Nevada, in 1894, Nyswander grew up on a cattle ranch in Topaz, Nevada, where her father was simultaneously dentist, doctor, justice of the peace and manager of the general store.

Graduating in mathematics from the University of Nevada in 1915, Nyswander went on to earn a PhD in psychology from UC Berkeley in 1926. She was 32 at the time and &emdash; in a pattern reminiscent of the 1990s &emdash; she was a divorced single mother and a socialist. From Berkeley, Nyswander went to Utah, becoming professor of educational psychology at the University of Utah, a position she held until 1936.

The approach Nyswander took to health education was to put people in charge of not only solving their own problems but identifying them as well. Revolutionary in her day and often honored in the breach today, this participatory approach, in Nyswander's hands, resulted in stunning successes. Under her non-directive tutelage, the people of Jamaica learned how to control malaria. In the small, rural community of Chitre, Panama, residents picked out flies as their top public health problem although public health professionals had focused on infant nutrition. But it was the flies that were making people sick, and under Nyswander's encouragement, residents identified the source of the problem and cleaned it up.

In an oral biography done by UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, Nyswander has written: "I think this whole problem of bringing about change, change from anything is a matter of commitment...the inner person has to become committed to it in some way. And you don't become an advocate unless you participate in the process."

Her husband of more than 20 years, George T. Palmer, former director of research for the American Child Health Association in New York, died in 1971. Her daughter, Marie Nyswander (Dole), a psychiatrist, died in 1986. Marie Nyswander helped found New York's methadone maintenance program for heroin addicts and authored the book, "The Drug Addict as a Patient."

Dorothy Nyswander's remains will be cremated and interred in Reno, Nevada, beside those of her husband, George, daughter, Marie, and sister, Margaret. She is survived by a niece, Barbara Ann Walker of Mission Viejo, Calif., and several cousins. Friends and relatives are planning a memorial service to take place next spring at a time and place to be announced.

Nyswander's favorite cause, the American Indian College Fund, has established the Nyswander-Manson Fund to stand in perpetuity in honor of her and her sister, Margaret Bird Manson. Contributions, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the AICF, can be sent in her honor to: AICF, 21 West 68th St., Suite 1F, New York, NY 10023.