文章基本信息

标题：The Politics of Emergency Health Powers and the Isolation of Public Health
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作者：John M. Colmers ; Daniel M. Fox
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2003
卷号：93
期号：3
页码：397-399
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act became a contentious document in more than 30 states in 2001 and 2002. Controversy has focused on recommendations by the authors of the Model Act that seemed to accord higher priority to collective action in emergencies than to protecting privacy and property. This situation has several causes that derive from the characteristics of public health emergencies during the past half century and the relative isolation of public health officials from both their colleagues in government and many members of the public. FIERCE ARGUMENTS SINCE September 2001 about the powers of government, particularly state government, during health emergencies reveal fundamental problems for the field of public health. The most important problem is that many people—including many legislators, physicians, and hospital executives—accord higher priority to protecting privacy and property in a time of peril than to collective solidarity and the effective use of government authority. This article relies mainly on our confidential conversations with policymakers in state and federal government. When an event we report left a partial trace on the public record, we offer a citation. Our generalizations about the relationship in recent decades between public health officers and the officials to whom they are accountable derive from our combined experience of almost half a century as participants in the politics of health policymaking. We regret the absence of credible, hence citable, secondary sources on the politics of policymaking for public health.