Warning: The NCBI web site requires JavaScript to function. more...
Generate a file for use with external citation management software.
Mailman School of Public Health, Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. rb8@columbia.edu
In the closing decades of the 20th century, a broadly shared view took hold that the stigmatization of those who were already vulnerable provided the context within which diseases spread, exacerbating morbidity and mortality by erecting barriers between caregivers and those who were sick and by imposing obstacles upon those who would intervene to contain the spread of illness. In this view, it was the responsibility of public health officials to counteract stigma if they were to fulfill their mission to protect the communal health. Furthermore, because stigma imposed unfair burdens on those who were already at social disadvantage, the process of stigmatization implicated the human right to dignity. Hence, to the instrumental reason for seeking to extirpate stigma, was added a moral concern. But is it true that stigmatization always represents a threat to public health? Are there occasions when the mobilization of stigma may effectively reduce the prevalence of behaviors linked to disease and death? And if so, how ought we to think about the human rights issues that are involved?
Your browsing activity is empty.
Activity recording is turned off.
Turn recording back on