Community Experiments in Public Health Law and Policy

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (S1) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela K. McGowan ◽  
Gretchen G. Musicant ◽  
Sharonda R. Williams ◽  
Virginia R. Niehaus
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Level ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Health States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Improve Health

Community-level legal and policy innovations or “experiments” can be important levers to improve health. States and localities are empowered through the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution to use their police powers to protect the health and welfare of the public. Many legal and policy tools are available, including: the power to tax and spend; regulation; mandated education or disclosure of information, modifying the environment — whether built or natural (e.g., zoning, clean water laws); and indirect regulation (e.g., court rulings, or deregulation). These legal and policy interventions can be targeted to specific needs at the community level and are often relatively low-cost, but high impact interventions. As every community is different, effective laws and policies will vary. This freedom allows states and localities to, as Justice Louis Brandeis argued, truly serve as “laboratories of democracy.”

The 1972 Elections

1973 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
H. G. Nicholas
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
American Elections ◽  
To Come

Elections satisfy both the practical and the theoretical requirements of classical democratic theory if they answer one question only: Who shall rule? Judged by this test the American elections of 7 November 1972 returned as clear and unequivocal an answer as the United States Constitution permits – crystal-clear as to individuals, equivocal as to parties and political forces. But the student of politics and society cannot resist treating elections as data-gathering devices on a wide range of other questions, on the state of the public mind, on the relative potency of pressure groups, on the internal health of the political parties, and, of course, on the shape of things to come. In this ancillary role American elections, despite the generous wealth of statistical material which they throw up – so much more detailed and categorized (though often less precise) than our own – Suffer in most years from one severe limitation, a limitation which in 1972 was particularly conspicuous; they do not engage the interest of more than a moderate percentage of the American citizenry. In 1972 that percentage was as low as 55 per cent, i.e. out of an estimated eligible population of 139,642,000 only 77,000,000 went to the polls. Since this circumscribes the conclusions which can be drawn from the results themselves, as well as constituting a phenomenon of considerable intrinsic interest, it seems worthwhile to begin any examination of the 1972 elections by an analysis not of the votes counted but of those which were never cast.

scholarly journals Micro Nudges: A Systems Approach to Health

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-596
Author(s):  
Dan Buettner
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Improve Health

The secret to longevity and healthier communities lies in a systems-level lifestyle-based approach. There are currently 5 regions across the world where people live relatively longer, healthier, and happier lives. Taking lessons from these areas, dubbed “blue zones,” we can help improve health and wellness at the population level. There are already cases of these Blue Zones Projects implemented in communities across the United States, which have had demonstrable, positive impacts on public health. Collaboration between the public and private sectors at the local level can make these changes to improve lifestyles and reduce the burden of chronic diseases on the healthcare system.

scholarly journals Preventing extreme polarization of political attitudes

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (50) ◽  
pp. e2102139118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Axelrod ◽  
Joshua J. Daymude ◽  
Stephanie Forrest
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

Extreme polarization can undermine democracy by making compromise impossible and transforming politics into a zero-sum game. “Ideological polarization”—the extent to which political views are widely dispersed—is already strong among elites, but less so among the general public [N. McCarty, Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2019, pp. 50–68]. Strong mutual distrust and hostility between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, combined with the elites’ already strong ideological polarization, could lead to increasing ideological polarization among the public. The paper addresses two questions: 1) Is there a level of ideological polarization above which polarization feeds upon itself to become a runaway process? 2) If so, what policy interventions could prevent such dangerous positive feedback loops? To explore these questions, we present an agent-based model of ideological polarization that differentiates between the tendency for two actors to interact (“exposure”) and how they respond when interactions occur, positing that interaction between similar actors reduces their difference, while interaction between dissimilar actors increases their difference. Our analysis explores the effects on polarization of different levels of tolerance to other views, responsiveness to other views, exposure to dissimilar actors, multiple ideological dimensions, economic self-interest, and external shocks. The results suggest strategies for preventing, or at least slowing, the development of extreme polarization.

The Social Origins of Property

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph William Singer ◽  
Jack M. Beermann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Core Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Takings Clause

It was easier to make a revolution than to write 600 to 800 laws to create a market economy.Jiri Dienstbier, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia (1990)[I]t would be as absurd to argue that the distribution of property must never be modified by law as it would be to argue that the distribution of political power must never bechanged.Morris Cohen (1927)The takings clause of the United States Constitution requires government to pay compensation when private property is taken for public use. When government regulates, but does not physically seize, property, the Supreme Court of the United States has had trouble defining when individuals have been deprived of property rights so as to give them a right to compensation. The takings clause serves “to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens that, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” To determine when a regulation amounts to a “taking” of property requiring compensation, the Court has rightly stated that the ultimate question is whether the burden of regulation has been unfairly placed on a small class of individuals rather than the public at large. To answer this question, the Court has identified a variety of factors to consider, including the character of the governmental action, (whether the regulation effects a permanent physical invasion, destroys a core property right, or is intended to prevent public harm), whether the regulation interferes with reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the extent of the diminution in value of the property (particularly whether the regulation deprives the owner of any economically viable use of the property).

scholarly journals A Bibliometric Analysis of Crowdsourcing in the Field of Public Health

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (20) ◽  
pp. 3825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Xia ◽  
Li ◽  
Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Data Processing ◽  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emerging Trends

With the characteristics of low cost and open call, crowdsourcing has been widely adopted in many fields, particularly to support the use of surveys, data processing, and the monitoring of public health. The objective of the current study is to analyze the applications, hotspots, and emerging trends of crowdsourcing in the field of public health. Using CiteSpace for the visualization of scientific maps, this study explores the analysis of time-scope, countries and institutions, authors, published journals, keywords, co-references, and citation clusters. The results show that the United States is the country with the most publications regarding crowdsourcing applications for public health. Howe and Brabham are the two leading authors in this field. Further, most of the articles published in this field are found in medical and comprehensive journals. Crowdsourcing in public health is increasing and diversifying. The results of this study will enable and support the analysis of the specific role of crowdsourcing in the public health ecosystem.

scholarly journals Self-Administered Mind-Body Practices for Reducing Health Disparities: An Interprofessional Opinion and Call to Action

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Kinser ◽  
Jo Lynne W. Robins ◽  
Saba W. Masho
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
High Quality Research ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Interprofessional Healthcare ◽  
Body Practices ◽  
Improve Health

Health disparities (HD) continue to persist in the United States which underscores the importance of using low-cost, accessible, evidence-based strategies that can improve health outcomes, especially for chronic conditions that are prevalent among underserved minority populations. Complementary/integrative health modalities, particularly self-administered mind-body practices (MBP), can be extremely useful in reducing HD because they are intrinsically patient-centered and they empower patients to actively engage in self-care of health and self-management of symptoms. Interprofessional healthcare providers and patients can engage in powerful partnerships that encompass self-administered MBP to improve health. This is a call to action for interprofessional researchers to engage in high-quality research regarding efficacy and cost-effectiveness of self-administered MBP, for practitioners to engage patients in self-administered MBP for health promotion, disease prevention, and symptom management, and for healthcare institutions to integrate self-administered MBP into conventional health practices to reduce HD in their communities.

CALCULATING QALYS: LIBERALISM AND THE VALUE OF HEALTH STATES

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas MacKay
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Health States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Value Of Health

Abstract:The value of health states is often understood to depend on their impact on the goodness of people's lives. As such, prominent health states metrics are grounded in particular conceptions of wellbeing – e.g. hedonism or preference satisfaction. In this paper, I consider how liberals committed to the public justification requirement – the requirement that public officials choose laws and policies that are justifiable to their citizens – should evaluate health states. Since the public justification requirement prohibits public officials from appealing to controversial conceptions of the good life, liberals committed to this principle face a significant puzzle.

scholarly journals THE AMAZON AS A LOW-COST ARENA IN THE COLD WAR'S GAME OF POWER? THE CASE OF THE AMAZONIAN GREAT LAKES PROJECT (1964-1968)

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 682
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Lovejoy ◽  
Fábio Albergaria de Queiroz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Brazilian History

The article examines an underexplored episode of the Brazilian history in the context of the Cold War: the role of the Hudson Institute in South America and the proposal to create a large lacustrine system in the Amazon domains. From the analysis of official documents and literary registers, some of them little-known from the public, we attempted to identify the existence of a relationship between the aforementioned project and the Cold War systemic agenda and, also, the role of Brazil in this paradigmatic moment of the contemporary history. Evidences did not allow us to point out a clear connection between the Amazon Great Lakes Project and the dynamics of the United States-Soviet Union political disputes, even though they have shown that such an enterprise, if carried out, could make the Hylea a low-cost arena for the achievement of U.S. interests in the Cold War's game of power.

scholarly journals Accessing Minnesota School Administrators’ Knowledge and Perceptions Related to Sharing School Play Spaces after the Passage of Minnesota Shared Use Legislation

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
John Spengler ◽  
Selina Stasi
Keyword(s):  
School Administrators ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
School Superintendents ◽  
Recreational Facilities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Facilities Design ◽  
School Property ◽  
And Training

Lower levels of physical activity among children in the United States can be attributed in part to the lack of access to safe, low-cost recreational facilities. Shared use, or a partnership allowing the community to use school recreational facilities outside of normal hours, has received increased attention. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the extent of knowledge among school decision makers about a law passed clarifying liability for school shared use in Minnesota and to understand perceptions held by school decision makers regarding shared use of recreational facilities. Design, Setting, and Participants: A survey of Minnesota school superintendents and other decision makers (N = 182) was conducted to understand the issues relevant to sharing school recreational facilities with the public. Results: The majority (90%) of respondents indicated concern about liability for injury on school property outside of normal hours, and that insurance and contracts provided the most protection from liability. Most respondents indicated they were not familiar with the Minnesota shared use legislation and its provisions (61.36%, n = 108). Conclusions: Findings suggest the importance of education and training to further school superintendents’ knowledge of Minnesota shared use legislation, legal and policy issues relevant to shared use, and issues related to the implementation of shared use within their Districts.

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