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Frontiers in Public Health 2023
Topics: Public Policy; Public Opinion; Health Policy
PubMed: 37026127
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1166645 -
The Hastings Center Report Jan 2023As many in the United States feel a need to take a side in the ongoing culture wars, the people who make up the field of bioethics have an obligation to directly engage...
As many in the United States feel a need to take a side in the ongoing culture wars, the people who make up the field of bioethics have an obligation to directly engage with those who hold different political views. If bioethics is an academic field, it must also affirm the overall values of the academy to continually challenge central assumptions. If the field wishes to be a part of the development of public policy, it must be able to construct such policies that in some fundamental manner honor the values of the opposition.
Topics: United States; Humans; Bioethics; Dissent and Disputes; Public Policy
PubMed: 36840330
DOI: 10.1002/hast.1451 -
The Milbank Quarterly Apr 2023Policy Points Public health science regarding alcohol consumption and problems, alcohol's role in equity and social justice, and identification of effective policy...
Policy Points Public health science regarding alcohol consumption and problems, alcohol's role in equity and social justice, and identification of effective policy interventions has grown steadily stronger in the past 30 years. Progress on effective alcohol policies has stalled or gone backward in the United States and much of the world. Because alcohol influences at least 14 of the 17 sustainable development goals, as well as more than 200 disease and injury conditions, reducing alcohol problems should offer a platform for collaboration across public health silos but will require that public health itself respect and follow its own science.
Topics: United States; Alcohol Drinking; Public Health; Public Policy; Health Policy
PubMed: 37096612
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0009.12631 -
Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy Sep 2022We argue that an unqualified use of the term solidarity in public health is not only equivocal but problematic toward the ends of public health. The term may be deployed...
We argue that an unqualified use of the term solidarity in public health is not only equivocal but problematic toward the ends of public health. The term may be deployed normatively by public health advocates to strengthen the bonds among public health practitioners and refer to an ideal society in which the importance of interdependence among members ought to be acknowledged throughout the polity. We propose an important distinction between partisan solidarity and societal solidarity. Because any moralized belief in a vision of a broad societal solidarity will be a contested political ideal, political reality would limit solidarity based on such a vision to partisan solidarity. An idealized vision of societal solidarity is simply not politically feasible in pluralistic, liberal, democratic societies. However, although societal solidarity is unlikely with respect to any particular policy, it might be hoped for with respect to constitutional procedures that provide boundaries for the agon of the political process. We suggest that moralizing assertions of a solidaristic ideal in a pluralistic society might be counterproductive to generating the political support necessary for public health per se and establishing legitimate public health policy. A pragmatic political approach would be for public health advocates to generate sufficient strong political support for those public health policies that are most amenable to the political and social realities of a time and place.
Topics: Humans; Politics; Public Health; Public Policy
PubMed: 35680703
DOI: 10.1007/s11019-022-10084-1 -
Journal of Public Health Policy Jun 2023By recognizing the structural causes of health and illness, public health has often been associated with values of compassion and solidarity, and a relational... (Review)
Review
By recognizing the structural causes of health and illness, public health has often been associated with values of compassion and solidarity, and a relational understanding of human agency. Rather than supporting the consistent integration and application of these insights, however, public health is now sometimes invoked more as a rhetorical move, used to construct issues as simple questions of neoliberal scientistic rationalism. Public health practitioners must reckon, therefore, with how the field can be discursively deployed in the public square, for multiple divergent political ends. If public health is always positioned as a value-neutral and detached scientific approach to addressing complex subjects, from drug use to pandemics, it not only fails to connect with the arguments of its critics, but further divorces what was once called the public health 'movement' from the strong and progressive political and theoretical positions it was founded upon and should advocate for today.
Topics: Humans; Public Health; Politics; Health Policy
PubMed: 37012486
DOI: 10.1057/s41271-023-00404-x -
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Aug 2023Our target article distinguishes between policy approaches that seek to address societal problems through intervention at the level of the individual (adopting the...
Our target article distinguishes between policy approaches that seek to address societal problems through intervention at the level of the individual (adopting the "i-frame") and those that seek to change the system within which those individuals live (adopting the "s-frame"). We stress also that a long-standing tactic of corporations opposing systemic change is to promote the i-frame perspective, presumably hoping that i-frame interventions will be largely ineffective and more importantly will be seen by the public and some policy makers as a genuine alternative to systemic change. We worry that the i-frame focus of much of behavioral science has inadvertently reinforced this unhelpful focus on the individual. In this response to commentators, we identify common themes, build on the many constructive suggestions to extend our approach, and reply to concerns. We argue, along with several commentators, that a key role of behavioral public policy is to clarify how to build support for systemic reforms for which there is a broad consensus in the policy community, but which are opposed by powerful special interests.
Topics: Humans; Public Policy; Behavior
PubMed: 37646288
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X23002091 -
The Lancet. Public Health Feb 2023There is a growing body of evidence indicating the arts have a role to play in promoting good health and preventing and managing illness. WHO has called for governments... (Review)
Review
There is a growing body of evidence indicating the arts have a role to play in promoting good health and preventing and managing illness. WHO has called for governments to take an intersectoral approach, both within and across traditional areas of policy, to realise the potential of the arts for public health. To explore what global progress is being made towards this aim, we present examples of arts and health policy development from diverse government areas: health, arts, local governments, and cross government. These examples, which have been selected from a scoping review of 172 relevant global policy documents, indicate that many health and arts policy makers view the relationship between arts engagement and improved health in quite general terms, although some are investing in more targeted applications of the arts to address specific public health issues. The most promising and concrete commitments are happening when health and arts ministries or agencies work together on policy development.
Topics: Humans; Public Policy; Policy Making; Health Policy; Public Health; Local Government
PubMed: 36709054
DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00313-9 -
The Senior Care Pharmacist Apr 2023
Topics: Vaccination; Public Policy; Politics
PubMed: 36949564
DOI: 10.4140/TCP.n.2023.161 -
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Aug 2023Individual-level research in behavioral science can have massive impact and create system-level changes, as several recent mandates and other policy actions have shown....
Individual-level research in behavioral science can have massive impact and create system-level changes, as several recent mandates and other policy actions have shown. Although not every nudge creates long-term behavior change, defaults and other forms of choice architecture can not only change individual behavior but also reduce inequities and lead to changes in public policy and norms.
Topics: Humans; Public Policy; Behavior
PubMed: 37646279
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X23000961 -
The Lancet. Child & Adolescent Health Dec 2021
Topics: Climate Change; Forecasting; Humans; International Cooperation; Public Policy
PubMed: 34741820
DOI: 10.1016/S2352-4642(21)00345-X