Several cities will vote on soda taxes this November, but the beverage industry is doing everything they can to make sure they don’t pass, including giving funding to national health organizations. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have spent millions on fighting public health interventions that would reduce soda consumption while simultaneously giving millions to public health […]
Category Archives: Public Health Ethics
Applied ethics for public health policy and practice
07
Jul
Jul
On June 12, 2016, the LGBTQ+ community was targeted by a gunman, leaving 50 people dead and 53 people injured. Doctors treating the injured pleaded for people in the Orlando community to donate blood to save lives, but the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited the very people who were targeted in the attack […]
Context of Population Health, Public Health Ethics
Income Segregation Reproduces Education Segregation
19
May
May
Sixty-two years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Yet many remain racially, ethnically and family-income homogenous today. Just this week, a federal judge ruled that a Mississippi school needed to be desegregated. A recent study blames some of that segregation on parents with school-aged children. The author found that income […]
The vaccination rate for California kindergartners has increased 2.5 percentage points since the previous school year, according to recently released data from the California Department of Public Health. Los Angeles County saw the largest increase in the number of fully vaccinated students – almost 9,000 children – compared to the previous school year. Alameda County […]
In 2011 the city of Flint decided to begin sourcing its water from Lake Huron, ending a purchasing arrangement it had with the city of Detroit. In the interim, it began drawing water from the Flint River. This switch was expected to save the city $5 million over two years. However, the city failed to […]
The third era is an exciting time to be in public health. It means not just badgering individuals about their health behaviors, but working across sectors to ensure the conditions in which people can pursue health. And it recognizes health as a resource for everyday living. But while the third era of public health has […]
I don’t agree with the scientific views of those who think vaccines are harmful. I think the science showing huge net benefits of required vaccines is quite clear, and moreover, I know just where the rumor about supposed vaccine dangers came from originally. Nonetheless, public health ethics requires us to give due deference to people’s […]
Earlier this month, California adopted one of the strongest pay equity laws in the U.S. aimed at decreasing the wage gap. Women have always been paid less than men for the same work, currently a median 84 cents for every dollar a man earns, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means women would have […]
A correspondent tells me I wasn’t clear in my previous post on vaccine denial, so let me clarify. Suppose there are 2 preschools, each with 100 kids. In the first, 80 kids are vaccinated. In the second, 97 kids are vaccinated. In the school with the high vaccination rate, a non-vaccinating parent who changed […]
What should we do with vaccine deniers? A mother named Kristen, interviewed by Saul Gonzalez for Which Way LA says that she’ll leave the state if she is forced to vaccinate her child in accordance with California’s new law. She and many others like her have deeply held beliefs, equally deeply at odds with current science. To […]
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