Where is the 'Public' in American Public Health? Moving from Individual Responsibility to Collective Action

Tomori, Cecília; Evans, Dabney P.; Ahmed, Aziza; Nair, Aparna; Meier, Benjamin Mason

Where is the 'Public' in American Public Health? Moving from Individual Responsibility to Collective Action

Where is the “Public” in American Public Health? Moving from Individual Responsibility to Collective Action, EClinicalMedicine - The Lancet (2022)

2 Pages Posted: 3 May 2022

See all articles by Cecília Tomori

Cecília Tomori

Johns Hopkins University - Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Aziza Ahmed

University of California, Irvine School of Law

Benjamin Mason Meier

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date Written: March 12, 2022

Abstract

American individualism continues to prove incommensurate to the public health challenge of COVID-19. Where the previous US Administration silenced public health science, neglected rising inequalities, and undermined global solidarity in the early pandemic response, the Biden Administration has sought to take action to respond to the ongoing pandemic. However, the Administration's overwhelming focus on individual responsibility over population-level policy stands in sharp contrast to fundamental tenets of public health that emphasize “what we, as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions for people to be healthy”.

Note:
Funding Information: None to declare.

Conflict of Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Keywords: Public Health, COVID-19

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Tomori, Cecília and Evans, Dabney P. and Ahmed, Aziza and Nair, Aparna and Meier, Benjamin Mason, Where is the 'Public' in American Public Health? Moving from Individual Responsibility to Collective Action (March 12, 2022). Where is the “Public” in American Public Health? Moving from Individual Responsibility to Collective Action, EClinicalMedicine - The Lancet (2022), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4072096