Charles Value Chapin was an American pioneer in public health research and practice during the Progressive Era. He was superintendent of health for Providence, Rhode Island between 1884 and 1932. He established one of the earliest municipal public health laboratories in 1888, and the Providence City Hospital for contagious diseases in 1910. Chapin taught at Brown University and Harvard. In 1927 he served as president of the American Public Health Association and as the first president of the American Epidemiological Society.