scholarly journals Δημόσια υγεία και Βιοηθική: το έργο του επιδημιολόγου Mervyn Susser

Bioethica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Αικατερίνη Ασπραδάκη (Aikaterini Aspradaki) ◽  
Αναστάσιος Φιλαλήθης (Anastasios Philalithis)
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Social Epidemiology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Common Interests ◽  
Historical Transition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practical Field

The multidisciplinary academic and practical field of public health is increasingly interesting for researchers in bioethics. The current paper, whose aim is to explore the origins of the enquiries of bioethics with respect to public health, focuses on the 1960’s and 1970’s, a period when modern bioethics developed, but also a period when important developments occurred in public health. At that time, the scientific field of epidemiology draws the attention of pioneers in public health and many would describe it as a period of historical transition, in the development and establishment of modern epidemiological methods.The paper draws on the work of the epidemiologist Mervyn Susser, one of the great personalities of epidemiology in the 20th Century, and an exponent of a type of epidemiology that is deeply rooted in public health. He was a fighter for social justice, who, in his long scientific career, strived to demonstrate the interdependency of social injustice and the health of populations and who combined anti-apartheid politics, clinical practice, sociology, epidemiology, the study of the scientific method and history. His work ranks him amongst the founders of scientific areas such as social epidemiology, life-course epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, the epidemiology of neuro-developmental disorders and global health. The work of Susser in the 1960’s and 1970’s and its relevance to bioethics is presented in three phases: The first refers to causality in epidemiology, the second to the history of responsibilities in public health and the third to issues of ethics in epidemiology.It is concluded that the relationship between public health and bioethics shows strong common interests that are established and expanded in the 1960’s and 1970’s by scientists such as the epidemiologist Mervyn Susser. In the 21st Century, this relationship provides the basis for the cooperation between ethics and a public health- based epidemiology, in order to achieve a bioethically committed global social justice.

Solidarity and the Common Good

2021 ◽  
pp. 44-65
Author(s):  
Bruce Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Epidemiology ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Philosophy Of Epidemiology ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
The Common ◽  
Critical Public Health ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter offers an account of individual rights and agency, and it considers both the liberal dimension and the communitarian dimension of public health ethics. It examines the relationship between social justice and social epidemiology and offers a particular interpretation of social justice as being crucially informed by a relational ethics of mutuality and solidarity. It provides a study premised on the hypothesis that relational theorizing and conceptualization developed in ecological epidemiology has its analogue in ethics. The chapter discusses how relational theorizing in both ethics and epidemiology can provide a promising pathway to a critical public health ethics. It considers the philosophy of epidemiology and the constitutive concepts guiding relational or social theorizing in the field.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ECONOMIC CRISES AND HEALTH

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 477-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIRSTY WALKER
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
History Of Public Health ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTDuring periods of recession, both historians and policy-makers have tended to revisit the multi-faceted relationship between health and economic crisis. It seems likely that the current economic downturn will trigger a new revival of efforts to gauge its implications for people's health around the world. This review will reflect on aspects of the relationship between health and economic crisis, exploring some of the unanswered questions within the historiography of the Great Depression and health, and suggest new directions that this work might take. Within a broadly transnational framework, I will reassess the diverse historiographies of interwar public health, in order to highlight ways in which the methodologies used could inspire future studies for neglected areas within this field, such as Southeast Asia. In doing so, I will illustrate that the effects of the interwar economic fluctuations on health status remain imprecise and difficult to define, but marked a transitional moment in the history of public health.

scholarly journals Placental genomic risk scores and early neurodevelopmental outcomes

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (7) ◽  
pp. e2019789118
Author(s):  
Gianluca Ursini ◽  
Giovanna Punzi ◽  
Benjamin W. Langworthy ◽  
Qiang Chen ◽  
Kai Xia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Brain Volume ◽  
Risk Scores ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Outcomes ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Genomic Risk

Tracing the early paths leading to developmental disorders is critical for prevention. In previous work, we detected an interaction between genomic risk scores for schizophrenia (GRSs) and early-life complications (ELCs), so that the liability of the disorder explained by genomic risk was higher in the presence of a history of ELCs, compared with its absence. This interaction was specifically driven by loci harboring genes highly expressed in placentae from normal and complicated pregnancies [G. Ursini et al., Nat. Med. 24, 792–801 (2018)]. Here, we analyze whether fractionated genomic risk scores for schizophrenia and other developmental disorders and traits, based on placental gene-expression loci (PlacGRSs), are linked with early neurodevelopmental outcomes in individuals with a history of ELCs. We found that schizophrenia’s PlacGRSs are negatively associated with neonatal brain volume in singletons and offspring of multiple pregnancies and, in singletons, with cognitive development at 1 y and, less strongly, at 2 y, when cognitive scores become more sensitive to other factors. These negative associations are stronger in males, found only with GRSs fractionated by placental gene expression, and not found in PlacGRSs for other developmental disorders and traits. The relationship of PlacGRSs with brain volume persists as an anlage of placenta biology in adults with schizophrenia, again selectively in males. Higher placental genomic risk for schizophrenia, in the presence of ELCs and particularly in males, alters early brain growth and function, defining a potentially reversible neurodevelopmental path of risk that may be unique to schizophrenia.

A Framework Convention on Global Health: Social Justice Lite, or a Light on Social Justice?

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Burris ◽  
Evan D. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Epidemiology ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Main Thrust ◽  
History Of Public Health ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relations Of Power

A decade ago, Jonathan Mann made a powerful case that human rights could provide a vocabulary and mode of analysis for understanding and advancing health. He made the case well, and put the idea into inspired practice, but the idea was neither new nor his alone. The idea that social justice — and henceforth in this article we will use that term loosely (and with obvious imprecision) to embrace goods like human rights, social equality, and distributive justice — was intrinsically important to health resonated with the social epidemiology already gathering force (not to mention an enduring theme running through the history of public health work). That social structure and relations of power explain a great deal about the level and distribution of population health was implicit in the work of pioneers like Geoffrey Rose, evident in Marmot’s seminal Whitehall studies, explicit in the writings of Mervyn Susser, and the main thrust of scholars like Nancy Krieger and Meredeth Turshen. Although researchers tend to avoid using a term with such normative weight, it is safe to say that Mann — and Susser, and Marmot and Krieger among others — were right: social justice is central to the proper understanding of health.

Digitized Health Promotion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Lupton
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Social Epidemiology ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Health Technologies

This chapter explores the use of digital health technologies in health promotion endeavors. This “digitized health promotion” is the latest stage in the trajectory of health promotion ideology and practice over the past four decades in wealthy Anglophone nations. Lupton argues that over this period the individualistic approach to good health commonly espoused in medicine and public health was challenged by advocates arguing for a greater focus on social justice and social epidemiology. The individualistic approach to health promotion never disappeared, however, and has gathered momentum in the current economic, political, and technological climate. While many health promotion workers still champion the ideals of “health for all,” public health policy in the context of digitized health promotion has begun to return to emphasizing personal responsibility for health.

Power and Place

2020 ◽  
pp. 186-233
Author(s):  
Erika Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Documentary Photography ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 6 surveys the history of documentary photography in twentieth-century Ireland. In particular, it examines the emergence of a new generation of documentary photographers and their role in debates about the nature of Irish society from the 1970s to the 1990s. Self-consciously radical, these photographers aimed to use their work to expose injustice and ‘reveal’ the hidden side of Irish life. In particular, the chapter focuses on the career of three photographers: Derek Speirs, Joanne O’Brien, and Frankie Quinn. It uses close readings of the work of these photographers, contemporaneous photography magazines, coupled with the extensive use of oral histories to explore the impact of documentary photography on Ireland in the later twentieth century. In their depiction of poverty as both visceral and uncomfortable, they challenged the traditional iconography of Ireland which had aestheticized or even eulogized these themes. Moreover, these photographers were often self-conscious and reflective regarding the relationship between themselves and the people—often in difficult circumstances—whom they portrayed. Nevertheless, they were often forced to make difficult choices about the depiction of poverty, violence, and injustice which attempted to expose societal problems without being voyeuristic. An exploration of choices they made regarding how they engaged with their subjects, what they photographed, and where they published provides a way of exploring the visual economies of social justice in later twentieth-century Ireland.

The Perils of Panic

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 223-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Sinha ◽  
Wendy E. Parmet
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
United States ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aids Epidemic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Deadly Disease ◽  
The Relationship

This Article explores the connections between emerging infectious diseases, domestic disease panics, global health, and the law by comparing the American response to Ebola to the initial American response to the AIDS epidemic. We demonstrate that in both cases the arrival of a new deadly disease was initially met with fear, stigma and the use of law to “other” those associated with the disease. We begin by reviewing the initial responses to the AIDS epidemic. We then offer a brief history of emerging infectious disease scares over the past few decades, highlighting the problematic rhetoric that paved the way for the Ebola panic. We then review the 2014 Ebola outbreak, noting its similarities and distinctions from the early AIDS epidemic. Finally, we examine United States policies regarding HIV and Ebola in Africa. We conclude with some tentative observations about the relationship between germ panics, law, and public health.

Sociology in the Context of Social Psychiatry

1992 ◽  
Vol 161 (5) ◽  
pp. 594-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Medical Research ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Academic Profession ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Medical Needs ◽  
Causes Of Disease ◽  
History Of ◽  
Environmental Causes ◽  
The Relationship

As part of its concern with the environmental causes of disease, medical research tries to comprehend the nature of social processes and their implications for human health: an endeavour calling for sociological concepts and methods (Susser et al, 1985). Medical needs are mirrored within sociology, which has never been confined to study of the workings of society, but has always concerned itself also with their impact on individuals and on public health. The importance of cooperation between the two disciplines is thus indisputable. Nevertheless, interprofessional relationships have never been easy, and Pflanz's dictum, that “the history of the relationship between sociology and medicine is … mainly a history of unsuccessful encounters” (Pflanz, 1976), remains substantially true today. The difficulties have been ascribed to interdisciplinary tensions of the kind that arise when a relatively young academic profession seeks to assert its autonomy in a relationship with an older-established and more powerful one. Martin (1976), stressing the dangers that can result from mutually false expectations, invoked the analogy of a marriage in which:

scholarly journals Social work and social justice: The relationship between fitness to practise and criminal convictions for non-violent activism

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Policy Statement ◽  
Criminal Convictions ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practical Sense

INTRODUCTION: Social work as a profession is underpinned by ideas of social justice and human rights, and that social workers have an ethical obligation to uphold these ideas. Social workers have a history of engagement in non-violent social justice activism (NVSJA), and a proud record of achieving social change in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, having a criminal conviction for engaging in NVSJA can be a barrier to social work registration in Aotearoa New Zealand.APPROACH: An exploration of current research around NVSJA and social work registration was conducted. Along with an examination of the Social Workers Registration Board’s (SWRB’s) Fit and Proper Person Policy Statement, with a consideration on the reporting of acts of NVSJA and social workers by the media.CONCLUSION: Those who engage in NVSJA are often likely to gain criminal convictions. This creates a potential barrier for social workers who go beyond the rhetoric and fight for social justice, in a macro and practical sense, from gaining registration. This has become additionally important since the Social Workers Registration Legislation Act (2019) passed and with registration becoming mandatory two years after the Act gained royal assent. There is a need for a change to the Fit and Proper Person Policy Statement so that the SWRB is better able to support social workers who are standing for what social work is all about, or at least, what social work is stated to be all about.

scholarly journals Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Age at Sexual Debut among Men Who Sex with Men in Shenzhen, China

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanlin Fu ◽  
Tubao Yang ◽  
Atipatsa C. Kaminga ◽  
Tingting Wang ◽  
Tiejian Feng
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Adverse Childhood Experiences ◽  
Sexual Debut ◽  
Early Sexual Debut ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sex With Men ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background Early sexual debut (ESD) is considered an important public health issue. Previous studies have indicated age at sexual debut is affected by multiple factors, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). However, studies specifically exploring the relationship between ACEs and age at sexual debut among men who have sex with men (MSM) are lacking. This study aims to explore the relationship between ACEs and age at sexual debut among MSM in China. Methods From March 2013 to August 2015, MSM who came to the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Clinic of Shenzhen Center for Chronic Disease Control were recruited in our study. Using an anonymous questionnaire, we collected information about their social-demographics, age at sexual debut and ACEs. Logistic regression and linear regression were performed to acquire the estimates for the relationships between ACEs and early sexual debut (ESD). Results A total of 546 MSM were recruited. The median age at MSM sexual debut was 20.0 years, and 40.5% of the MSM were exposed to at least one ACEs. Multivariable logistic regression analysis indicated that MSM with a history of ACEs was approximately twice (aOR=2.15; 95%CI:1.32-3.48) as likely to report a history of ESD and tended to experience sexual debut approximately one year (β:-1.10; 95%CI: -1.70,-0.50) earlier than those without. Conclusions ACEs are associated with ESD, suggesting that sexual health education and public health programs aimed at delaying early sexual debut among young Chinese MSM should consider addressing ACEs.

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