Event Description
This talk explores the securitization of American public health and the transformation of the political foundations of public health over the past twenty-five years. Despite notable successes in areas such as smoking cessation, public health institutions did a poor job of expanding beyond traditional threats such as acute and infectious diseases to combat the challenge of chronic disease. The 9/11 attacks, 2001 anthrax mailings, and apparent threat of biological weapons opened a window of opportunity that allowed entrepreneurial bureaucrats and political leaders to frame public health as a matter of national security. The resulting infusion of resources and shift in priorities reoriented local-level public health infrastructure towards specific challenges such as emergency preparedness and bioterrorism. In the model of public health that emerged, key aspects of local capacity were underfunded, institutions were designed around a narrow set of problems, and core challenges such as chronic disease and the social drivers of health were often left unaddressed. Although public health officials were well aware of the threat of pandemic disease, the emphasis on security-framed threats came at the expense of the basic infrastructure needed to address a prolonged crisis such as COVID-19.
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required. For more information, please email Angela Sclafani at [email protected] with any questions.
Hosted by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
