Members of the list might be interested in a new article of mine published 
in Public Health Ethics.
 
http://phe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/07/05/phe.phs013.abstract
 
Here is the Title and Abstract:
 
Social Justice, Health Inequalities and Methodological Individualism in US 
Health Promotion
 
This article asserts that traditionally dominant models of health 
promotion in the US are fairly characterized by methodological 
individualism. This schema produces a focus on the individual as the node 
of intervention. Such emphasis results in a number of scientific and 
ethical problems. I identify three principal ethical deficiencies: first, 
the health promotions used are generally ineffective, which violates 
canons of distributive justice because scarce health resources are 
expended on interventions that are unlikely to produce health benefits. 
Second, the health promotions used tend to expand health inequalities 
between the affluent and the least well-off. Third, the health promotions 
used are likely to intensify stigma against the least well-off, a 
deficiency that itself may exacerbate the ?densely-woven patterns of 
disadvantage? that characterize life on the tail of the social gradient. 
Because Powers and Faden?s health sufficiency model of social justice 
argues that the amelioration of such clusters of disadvantage should be 
the primary ethical goal of public health policy, methodologically 
individualist models of health promotion are ethically deficient and 
should not stand as primary approaches for health promotion in a just 
social order.
 
_________________________________________
 
 
I?m happy to send along a copy if anyone is interested ? please feel free 
to email me privately.
 
Best,
 
--Daniel
 
Daniel S. Goldberg, J.D., Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Bioethics & Interdisciplinary Studies
Brody School of Medicine
East Carolina University
600 Moye Blvd, Mailstop 641
Greenville, N.C. 27834
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http://www.ecu.edu/cs-dhs/medhum/goldberg.cfm
_______________
Tel:  252.744.5699
Fax: 252.744.2319
 

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