Public health administration and science: strange bedfellows?

摘要

As I generally say to my students in a very early lecture in my introduction to public health class, public health is the nexus of science and politics. Generally I illustrate this with a teen pregnancy example. A needs assessment shows that your health district has an unusually high rate of teen pregnancy. While the science suggests making birth control available to teenagers, who are going to experiment with sex, notwithstanding any other intervention, including abstinence education, the latter will appeal to the community and the first will not make it through your board of health. The birth control works and the abstinence education does not and is a waste of money. But, abstinence education is what the school and local board of health will allow and in fact want, but you know it does not work. Welcome to public health administration!