Stephen J. Kunitz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199688203
- eISBN:
- 9780191767500
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199688203.003.0020
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
This chapter outlines a general typology of public health interventions, illustrated by the history of programmes for native American Indian populations. Three types of intervention are noted: ...
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This chapter outlines a general typology of public health interventions, illustrated by the history of programmes for native American Indian populations. Three types of intervention are noted: definitive procedures, like immunization, which do not entail ongoing behavioural change; population-based procedures that can be applied uniformly across all individuals, and clinical interventions that focus on high-risk individuals. These strategies reflect top-down population approaches and comprehensive monitoring to assess impacts. In contrast to definitive procedures are halfway technologies and approaches, where health problems can be ameliorated but not fully resolved and characteristically involve significant changes of behaviour. For American Indian populations, as with much of the world, conditions requiring halfway approaches—diabetes, heart disease, cancers—have become much more prevalent. Halfway interventions pose significant problems for conventional statistics and closed population models, because they entail continuing social evolution, which does not fit easily into datasets composed of discrete classifications and unrepeatable events.Less
This chapter outlines a general typology of public health interventions, illustrated by the history of programmes for native American Indian populations. Three types of intervention are noted: definitive procedures, like immunization, which do not entail ongoing behavioural change; population-based procedures that can be applied uniformly across all individuals, and clinical interventions that focus on high-risk individuals. These strategies reflect top-down population approaches and comprehensive monitoring to assess impacts. In contrast to definitive procedures are halfway technologies and approaches, where health problems can be ameliorated but not fully resolved and characteristically involve significant changes of behaviour. For American Indian populations, as with much of the world, conditions requiring halfway approaches—diabetes, heart disease, cancers—have become much more prevalent. Halfway interventions pose significant problems for conventional statistics and closed population models, because they entail continuing social evolution, which does not fit easily into datasets composed of discrete classifications and unrepeatable events.
