Public health concerns include universal access to healthcare, communicable diseases, food safety, stem cell research, and vaccination. Governments struggle to fund healthcare reform, while international travel creates new disease transmission patterns. Food safety issues have included outbreaks of Salmonella and E. coli. Stem cell research is controversial, and vaccination is a concern due to some parents’ reluctance to vaccinate their children.
Public health concerns the overall health of a community and threats to public health. Major public health issues may appear to change over time, but the underlying problems remain largely the same. Some of the issues still important are: universal access to health care, public safety in light of communicable diseases, food safety; stem cell research and vaccination. The impact of the environment on health and problems related to drug and alcohol use are other public health problems.
Universal access to health care, sometimes referred to loosely as “health care reform,” has been one of several ongoing public health issues. Governments are struggling to find a means to fund such a programme. Another aspect of the issue is trying to reach a bipartisan agreement on what the program should include and whether individuals should be mandated to purchase health insurance. Benefits for low-income individuals and families are another consideration in the equation. When health care reform has been implicated in campaign promises, as it was for President Barack Obama in the United States, it adds another twist to the picture.
Public safety in light of communicable diseases has been a major public health issue in the twenty-first century. International travel creates new patterns in disease transmission. In the new century there have been major epidemics of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), avian influenza, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease (MCD), and when it affects humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD) and influenza A virus subtype H1N1, or swine flu, responsible for the 2009 influenza pandemic.
Food safety has also made headlines in the twenty-first century. Major events include Chinese milk problems and Canadian listeriosis in 2008, and US outbreaks of Salmonella, botulism, and E. coli 0157:H7. Outbreaks of Salmonella and E. coli in the United States have been numerous, with Salmonella found in peanut butter, jalapeno peppers, alfalfa sprouts, chicken and turkey pies, spinach and E. coli on ground beef and spinach, and in several Taco Bell establishments.
Stem cell research is a controversial public health issue because in many cases human embryos are destroyed or cloned to start a stem cell line. Some people believe that this methodology makes the use of stem cells morally wrong, either because the embryo is not valued for its very existence, i.e. as human or human potential, or because they are concerned that therapeutic cloning to produce stem cells it is too close to reproductive cloning, which they find morally burdensome. Other methods of obtaining stem cells are underway to address these objections and focus on research possibilities.
Vaccination to help eliminate and prevent the return of dangerous diseases is another public health concern. The reluctance of some parents to have their children vaccinated, whether because of concern about a possible connection between vaccinations and autism or for other reasons, such as religious beliefs, is problematic because it straddles the line between personal choice and public safety.
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