This document discusses how politics relates to public health. It provides four key reasons why public health is inherently political: 1) Individual health actions can create externalities that affect others, requiring some level of political oversight. 2) There is debate around what basic health services governments should provide as "merit goods". 3) Moral views on public health issues require political support to enact policies. 4) Large public health problems could threaten national security if left unaddressed. The document explores these concepts through examples like infectious disease outbreaks and different countries' welfare systems.
Unit-IV; Professional Sales Representative (PSR).pptx
HLPR3001 - Module 2 (2022)
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
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“Just because you do not take
an interest in politics doesn’t
mean politics won’t take an
interest in you.”
- Pericles
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Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
ECONOMY OF HEALTH
Louise Francis
A POLITICAL
3. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Overview
What is politics?
What does it have to do with public health?
• Externalities
• Merit goods
• Morality
• National security
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Bambra et al. (2005) – Article in focus
Reading critical review
1. Reflect on the readings/online materials for Module 2
2. Key messages/thoughts? What were the take away
messages?
3. What content got you thinking?
4. How does the content presented relate to any of your
previous units/studies?
5. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Bambra et al. (2005) – Article in focus
Key messages/thoughts
Any concepts you didn’t understand?
Why is health political?
Health as a commodity
Health as an aspect of citizenship and a human right
How do these concepts relate to political philosophy (neo-liberalism/capitalism & the
welfare state)?
6. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Bambra et al. (2005) – Article in focus
Key messages/thoughts
Any concepts you didn’t understand?
Why is health political?
Health as a commodity
Health as an aspect of citizenship and a human right
How do these concepts relate to political philosophy (neo-liberalism/capitalism & the
welfare state)?
Why is health apolitical?
7. Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
What is politics?
1. Politics as government – the art of government and the
activities of the state.
2. Politics as public life – concerned with the conduct and
management of community affairs.
3. Politics as conflict resolution – concerned with the
expression and resolution of conflicts through compromise,
conciliation, negotiation and other strategies.
4. Politics as power – the process through which desired
outcomes are achieved in the production, distribution and use
of scarce resources in all areas of social existence.
Bambra, et al. (2005)
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Activity 2.1: Political Interpretations
1. What did Bambra et al (2005) mean when they
referred to the first and last as a top down and a bottom
up interpretation of politics?
2. According to Schrecker & Bambra (2015) what is the
focus of a political economy approach to understanding
health and how is it different to a biomedical approach to
health?
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
EXPLORING THE CONNECTIONS
HEALTH POLITICAL?
WHY IS PUBLIC
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Some reasons…
1. Externalities and individual restrictions for the
common good
2. Extent to which government is expected to provide
bare necessities
3. Moral judgments about response to public health
issues require political support to enact
4. Public health problems can affect national
security if reaching a certain scale
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
externalities…
Individual + institutional
actions often produce
significant spillover
effects (what economists
call externalities).
Some of these are
beneficial and some are
harmful.
REASON #1
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
REASON #1
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
“The only purpose for which power can
rightfully be exercised over any member of a
civilised community, against his will, is to
prevent harm to others. His own good,
either physical or moral, is
not sufficient warrant.”
- John Stuart Mill
REASON #1
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
REASON #2
merit goods
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
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In their own words: The Welfare State
Video also available to view on Blackboard in Unit
Materials – Module 2
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
In their own words: The Welfare State
How do the MPs describe the role of welfare?
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Activity 2.2: Welfare States
Reflect on the following with reference to the reading by
Schrecker and Bambra (2015) in particular:
What regime of welfare state is Australia and what are its
key characteristics?
Homework: Choose two countries identified in the article in
Tables 1.1 and 1.2. With consideration to the political
context discussed in the chapter, review the changes in
health outcomes for the two selected countries and what
may have contributed to the changes in health outcomes.
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
REASON #3
Senator Penny Wong and Senator Cory Bernardi take the oath in the Senate. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
REASON #4
national security
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
COVID ‘Lived’ Case Study
• Politics
• Welfare State
• Externalities
• Merit Goods
• National Security
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Key points
Politics is central in determining how citizens and policy
makers recognise and define problems with existing social
conditions and policies, in facilitating certain kinds of public
health interventions but not others, and in generating a
variety of challenges in policy implementation.
An understanding of politics helps public health
practitioners to better anticipate both short term constraints
and long term opportunities for change.
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Key concepts
Politics
Externalities
Merit goods
Morality
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
Curtin University is a trademark of Curtin University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Next week
Tour of Western Australian Parliament – 9-11am Thursday
Please arrive by 8.45am to avoid missing out.
Masks should be worn along with professional attire.
See Blackboard for more details on location and transport.
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Module 2: A Political Economy of Health
Health Partnerships, Politics and Power
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CRICOS Provider Code 00301J
Questions & comments
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2
An opportunity to explore one of the readings more explicitly
This week’s reading discussed four definitions.
Tell me about these definitions. Do any resonate more or less with you?
Top down – separates politics from the community
Bottom up - Politics is everything; it is a term that can be used to describe any ‘power-structured relationship’. - every issue is political and everyone can engage in a political act.
(Millett, 1969)
Not mutually exclusive and in this unit we will explore both the function and structure of the actual government but also how negotiate partnerships and use and challenge power to improve public health outcomes.
This week’s reading discussed four definitions.
Tell me about these definitions. Do any resonate more or less with you?
Top down – separates politics from the community
Bottom up - Politics is everything; it is a term that can be used to describe any ‘power-structured relationship’. - every issue is political and everyone can engage in a political act.
(Millett, 1969)
Not mutually exclusive and in this unit we will explore both the function and structure of the actual government but also how negotiate partnerships and use and challenge power to improve public health outcomes.
This week’s reading discussed four definitions.
Tell me about these definitions. Do any resonate more or less with you?
Top down – separates politics from the community
Bottom up - Politics is everything; it is a term that can be used to describe any ‘power-structured relationship’. - every issue is political and everyone can engage in a political act.
(Millett, 1969)
Not mutually exclusive and in this unit we will explore both the function and structure of the actual government but also how negotiate partnerships and use and challenge power to improve public health outcomes.
This week’s reading discussed four definitions.
Tell me about these definitions. Do any resonate more or less with you?
Top down – separates politics from the community
Bottom up - Politics is everything; it is a term that can be used to describe any ‘power-structured relationship’. - every issue is political and everyone can engage in a political act.
(Millett, 1969)
Not mutually exclusive and in this unit we will explore both the function and structure of the actual government but also how negotiate partnerships and use and challenge power to improve public health outcomes.
The biomedical model focuses on possibilities for cure and views differences in health as differences among individuals;
the behavioural approach focuses on what are widely referred to as lifestyle choices (smoking, alcohol consumption, healthy diets, seatbelt use) while normally neglecting the larger contextual influences (low incomes that make healthy diets unaffordable, intensive marketing of energy-dense convenience foods to children).
The political economy approach, by contrast, focuses on ‘social, political and economic structures and relations’ that may be, and often are, outside the control
of the individuals they affect: health is politically determined (Bambra et al., 2005). As epidemiologist Nancy Krieger describes the core of the political economy approach, patterns of health and disease are ‘produced, literally and metaphorically, by the structures, values and priorities of political and economic systems ... Health inequities are thus posited to arise from whatever is each society’s form of social inequality, defined in relation to power, property and privilege’ (Krieger, 2013). Another way of expressing this idea comes from work by Diderichsen and colleagues, who argued for explaining socially patterned disparities in health in terms of how social stratification (the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities) generates differences in exposures to risks of illness, vulnerabilities to those exposures and consequences of ill health. Further, they argued that explanations must venture upstream from the observed facts of stratification to consider ‘those central engines in society that generate and distribute power, wealth and risks’ (Diderichsen et al., 2001, p. 16). In 2014, the Lancet–University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health took a further step by putting forward the concept of political determinants of health, insisting that ‘[c]onstruing socially and politically created health inequities as problems of technocratic or medical management depoliticises social and political ills’ (Ottersen et al., 2014, p. 636).
So why is public health political?
I’m going to give four reasons (but there are others).
Politics is central in determining how citizens and policy makers recognise and define problems with existing social conditions and policies, in facilitating certain kinds of public health interventions but not others, and in generating a variety of challenges in policy implementation.
Externalities and individual restrictions for the common good
Extent to which government is expected to provide bare necessities
Moral judgments about response to public health issues require political support to enact
Public health problems can affect national security if reaching a certain scale
In groups come up with a list of externalities for one of the following private actions:
Smoking
Driving while intoxicated
Vaccination
To compensate for externalities associated with private actions such as smoking, vaccination, driving while intoxicated, sexual practices, and the manufacture and sale of products requires political decisions about when and how to impose restraints on individual liberties or commercial interests.
Emphasis is not on harms to self but the impact an action may have on others/environment.
What is a recent policy that attempted to impose restraints on commercial interests because of an externality?
Carbon price – costing pollution
Plain packaging – limiting brand allegiance and promotion to reduce health harms
This quote represents a common sentiment although it is not universal.
What does this mean to you?
How do we measure ‘potential harm to others’?
Should we be concerned about individuals that chose to do risky or harmful things to themselves?
In the eyes of John Stuart Mill, this would be the sole principle justifying public health policy: “The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.”
Eg 1905 - landmark court decision of compulsory vaccination against smallpox in Massachusetts.
What laws do we have in Australia that restrict individual liberties under the guise of the ‘common good’?
List them on board
Agree – disagree?
We’ll explore this tension later in semester.
There is a youtube video linked in the quote but depending on time don’t need to play it as the quote is sufficient to pose some considerations and it will be on BB after class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9IM3ZKNMCk
The concept of a merit good introduced in economics by Richard Musgrave (1957, 1959) is a commodity which is judged that an individual or society should have on the basis of some concept of need, rather than ability and willingness to pay. Citizens look to government to identify and satisfy a variety of physical, economic and psychological needs that extend well beyond the means for survival.
The public may support certain ‘merit goods’ that should be distributed to intended beneficiaries whether or not they have an ability to pay for those goods. Such merit goods include primary and secondary education, basic health care, and welfare payments as a social net for those in poverty and
These require political decisions to define their scope and substance, eligibility to receive them, and the source of revenues to purchase them or provide them directly.
We discussed in the first week that unlike the US we have universal health care and some of the benefits of this.
You would have come across the term “welfare state” and just like the term “nanny state” is often used pejoratively.
What services and support should be universally accessible by citizens and therefore provided by the government? Is there a limit to this provision? Is it necessary?
What does it mean to be a citizen? What are our obligations and what should we expect in return?
Different governments provide these things to different extents and can be classified according to different 'regimes' of welfare state as explored in the reading by Schrecker and Bambra (2015).
In Australia, Medicare was introduced in 1975 to ensure universal healthcare provision to Australians. Norway has had universal healthcare since 1912 and New Zealand since 1938 while Greece, Spain and South Korea achieved it in the 1980s and the United States is still yet to (Obamacare made some small inroads). Australia provided free university education for a short period from 1974 to 1989 while countries such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden continue to do so.
Short discussion on what phrases and perspectives were present.
Who can tell me about these two people? (Penny Wong – ALP, lesbian / Cory Bernardi – Originally Liberal, defected to Conservatives, no longer in parliament, campaigner against same-sex marriage) – might need some explanation as most won’t know who they are!
What do you think the relationship might be between morality or moral judgement and public health that makes it political?
Protecting public health involves moral judgements that require legitimacy through political debate and resolution.
The appropriateness of offering clean needles to people who inject drugs, funding stem cell research, supporting medical uses for marijuana, ensuring access to contraception and abortion, and legalising physician-assisted suicide (euthanasia) are among the moral issues that are hotly contested in the political arena.
In your groups
Sex education in schools
Needle exchange programs
Decriminalisation or regulation of sex work
Medical usage of marijuana
How do we make decisions about controversial issues when there are different points of view?
Considerations of evidence, equity and non-judgemental practice.
A healthy population and workforce is vital to economic growth and social order. Threats from infectious disease or climate change are not only public health problems but also when they reach a certain scale, may become national security issues and thus a potential source of political instability.
Consider the current context of COVID – what political aspects can you identify in the experience and response?