Abstract
Current debates concerning appropriate policy to combat the epidemic of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) have raised critical questions regarding the role that schools of public health and individual public health professionals should play, if any, in AIDS-related policy analysis and social advocacy. In the summer of 1986, the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley initiated a telegram sent by the Deans of all 23 schools of public health to protest US Department of Justice AIDS policy and, in the subsequent fall, the school expanded its public educational role in an unprecedented manner by initiating and issuing, with California's other three schools of public health, a policy analysis of Proposition 64, the LaRouche AIDS Quarantine Initiative. That analysis exposed the proposition's fallacious claims regarding casual transmission of AIDS and served to educate the electorate on the likely public health impact of this deleterious legislation. Based on these experiences, and in light of ongoing national controversy regarding AIDS, we believe schools of public health have an important role to play in policy analysis, and individual public health professionals have a role to play in social advocacy.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Petit C. California to vote on AIDS proposition. Science. 1986 Oct 17;234(4774):277–278. doi: 10.1126/science.3764414. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rosenberg Charles E. Disease and social order in America: perceptions and expectations. Milbank Q. 1986;64(Suppl 1):34–55. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rothman K. J., Poole C. Science and policy making. Am J Public Health. 1985 Apr;75(4):340–341. doi: 10.2105/ajph.75.4.340. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Yankauer A. Science and social policy. Am J Public Health. 1984 Oct;74(10):1148–1149. doi: 10.2105/ajph.74.10.1148. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]