The Face of Exploitation in Public Health Essay -- International Healt

The Face of Exploitation in Public Health International public health policies attempt to reform the social and political systems which influence the health and safety of all citizens of the world. In the past, these policies have been created through the strong reliance on and exploitation of socially constructed systems of classification such as gender, sexuality, nationality, and economic class. It has been a system of correlation between the behaviors which seem prevalent within social groupings and chances that those behaviors will lead to disease transmition or infestation. In January 2004, the World Health Organization announced a radical change in their policies surrounding public health study and prevention in the 2004 World Report on violence and health. Instead of focusing on larger global and national trends, the WHO called for an expansion of policies and increase of resources which focused more on the experiences and support of individuals rather than groups. This value of individual experience holds extreme pr omise in the expansion and effectiveness of public health initiatives as well has changes many societal systems of classifications. However, there may be detrimental effects of this change that exploit the very subjects that they attempt to help. It is a question of forcing the private experience of disease into a public domain. Where are the lines of public verses private drawn? Public health by its very definition emphasizes public classification over the individual body. Its basic goal is to establish effective general health services that meet the minimum health requirements for a majority of people. With this general goal in mind, there are two major assumptions made within the formation of public ... ...ing: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion." Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex." 121-156.New York: Routledge, 1993. Delany, Samuel. "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion." Longer Views: Extended Essays. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1996 Foucault, Miachael. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980. Hoole, Francis. Politic and Budgeting in the World Health Organization. 2 Indiana Unniverstity Press. 1997. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. 3-44.New York: Basic Books, 1999. Siddiqi, Javed. World Health and World Politics; the World Health Organization and the UN System. 194-195. University of South Carolina Press. 1995