DOB

DOB 3

Questions

What is the government’s role in protecting the public’s health? Specifically, what is the role of the judicial system in protecting the public’s health? In your responses to peers, consider the positive and negative impact of laws and regulations on public health.

Answers

According to former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Government has a responsibility to implement effective public health measures that increase the information available to the public and decision makers, protect people from harm, promote health, and create environments that support healthy behaviors” (Frieden, 2013 p. 1859). The majority of scholarly articles I found through a quick search regarding the role of the American judicial system in protecting public health generally has to do with public health emergencies, for example, during a severe infectious disease outbreak when “involuntary civil confinement such as isolation, quarantine, or other compulsory ‘social distancing’ measures” are implemented, the judicial system is responsible for ensuring that “those measures do not unduly interfere with the rights of individuals or groups” (Stier, Nicks, & Cowan, 2007, p. S71). The 1905 United States Supreme Court decision Jacobson v Massachusetts determined that individual rights and civil liberties can be overridden for the common good (i.e., public health) and that the judiciary has the power to both enforce public health policies and arbitrate conflicts that arise as a result of those actions between the government and individuals or groups (Mariner, Annas, & Glantz, 2005).

The judiciary has, broadly, the role of balancing the rights of individuals and groups and the need to preserve the public health. Policies can and have been made in the name of public health that have not always taken into consideration civil liberties, and in retrospect some of those decisions were even detrimental, or at least not beneficial, to the public health. That is an anecdotal statement but there is an abundance of historical cases where violations of civil liberties were condoned in the name of the larger common good (e.g., Tuskegee syphilis study). Both constitutional law and public health evolves, and it is the role of the judiciary to make decisions to ensure that the fast-moving policy world takes into consideration the bedrock of civil liberties that comprise American society.

Side note—although I didn’t get as much out of the movie as I had expected, it was an enjoyable, if a bit depressing, film to watch.

References

Frieden, T. (2013). Government’s Role in Protecting Health and Safety. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(20), 1857-1859.

Mariner, W., Annas, G., & Glantz, L. (2005). Jacobson v Massachusetts: It’s Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Public Health Law. American Journal of Public Health, 95(4), 581-590.

Stier, D., Nicks, D., & Cowan, G. (2007). The Courts, Public Health, and Legal Preparedness. American Journal of Public Health, 97(Suppl. 1), S69-S73.