RESPONSE#1 ( 2 RESPONSES)
The case study focusses on racial and ethical categories as it relates to public health research and surveillance in the current years. The case study highlights its purpose to provide evolving discovery with social determents of ethnicity and its relevance to race. The issue of race being the determinate for health factors could be alarming. Race is ever-changing and evolving. As it is stated in the case study, race is defined by biologic construct, single breeding population, in practice based on superficial traits such as skin color and facial features. Race and ethical categories could increase the risks of false outcomes if the racial and ethical categories do not make up all racial and ethical categories (individuals). From a public health ethics perspective I think that racial and ethical categories could leave too many grey areas. Who can really determine the accurate makeup of an individual by multiple choice questions? This issue may not have any concrete ethical issues; however I believe it leaves room to some alarming possibilities. I could just imagine what individuals that do not fit in any category would feel. Could they feel discriminated against? This would be the grey area that would need to be addressed so that people are willing to participate in research. From a faith-based perspective I do not see any alarming outcomes. Individuals will in-turn have faith in what they believe. I do not believe that the findings of the case study would increase someone’s faith. Things will rather remain the same or drastically change because of that individuals faith perspective. Some social injustices would be that some individuals would not have a category to be placed in. Social and ethical categories are complicated. It seems as though the categories (data) would never be completely accurate. Additionally, the appearance of someone can not be concluded in a category nor can the environment that they were born in.
References
Principles of ethical practice of public health. American Public Health Associations’. (2002
Schneider, M., & Schneider, H. S. (2017). Introduction to public health (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
RESPONSE#2 (2 RESPONSES)
A Case Study in the Use of Race and Ethnicity in Public Health Surveillance focused on how the use of race and ethnicity in public health research and surveillance in the recent years has had in increase in collective awareness in classification schemes rather than resolve theoretical or practical problems. It defines race to be a biological construct of a single breeding population. Race is a practice based on superficial phenotypic traits such as skin color and facial features. Ethnicity is defined as the result from the interaction of genes, culture, and social class. Ethnicity produced by social evolution or the raciation among a species where cultural differentiation predominates. It is important to establish the difference between the two because the composition of the population of the United States is changing rapidly as new ethnic groups rise in prominence and surveillance systems and so must respond to this challenge. According to Hahn et al (1994),found that for biological categories, public health surveillance should assess measurable biological characteristics known to be associated with populations of interest. On the other hand, for categories defined by self-perception, effective surveillance must assure that self-perception, though subjective, is accurately assessed. Accurate assessment of self-perceived characteristics depends on rapport with surveillance subjects and on use of appropriate concepts, language, and cultural etiquette.From a faith based perspective I feel that each ethnic background shares different cultural attributes. I do not think race should be used to classified a certain population by the way they look opposed to how they are genetically predisposed. I think a lot of “races” have deeper cultural depth. In regards to public health ethics science is the basis for much of our public health knowledge and therefore should be used to collect data based on ethnic background opposed to social classification.
Knowing that infant mortality is something that is being categorized by race is a little controversial. Every person has their own unique biological differences and labeling them all as one race impacts the health of that specific population. In order to accurately assess when and where the problem is occurring, it would be necessary to find the genetic root of the problem and how it impacts the subgroup and or category that the individual is being classified in. Some possibilities of social injustice to consider is having certain ethnic backgrounds identify themselves to be a certain race. It lacks individualism and it lacks the possibility for individuals to relate to or associate themselves with their ethnic origins. Another possible social injustice is labeling individuals to a specific subgroups based on looks that may impose slight discrimination. Skin color and facial features does not always entail that one individual is tied to one specific race and it can create a discrepancy in data collection and analysis.
References
Hahn, R. Stroup, D.F Race and Ethnicity in Public Health Surveillance: Criteria for the Scientific Use of Social Categories. (2004). Public Health Reports.Vol 109. 1.
Appendix Z. Principles of the Ethical Practice of Public Health. (2017). Landesman’s Public Health Management of Disasters: The Practice Guide, 4th edition. doi:10.2105/9780875532806appz