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HEALTH

Public health's role key to homeland security

The threat of biological attack has taken public health out of the shadows and cast it into a more visible role in protecting the nation.

By Stephanie Stapleton, amednews staff. Feb. 4, 2002.

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Renewed Attention
Public Health: Renewed Attention
A six-part series exploring the role of the public health system in the context of our nation's newfound state of alert.
  1. From the front lines
  2. Recent history
  3. Greater expectations
  4. The risk-benefit ratio
  5. New promises
  6. Homeland security

Washington -- The concept of national defense traditionally involves discussions about futuristic high-tech defensive weaponry that would function like a protective bubble over the United States -- preventing missiles, bombs and other tools of destruction from ever penetrating its borders.

But the events of this past September undermined the hope of such security. Moreover, October's anthrax assault, which killed five people and stretched the nation's health system, offered chilling evidence of a different vulnerability, one that had previously been considered only hypothetical.

"For a long time, people really thought this was not a threat we would have to take seriously," said Margaret Hamburg, MD, vice president of biological programs at the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Threat Institute.

But the anthrax attack has translated into concerns about the viability of a whole range of other biological threats, including the sinister use of smallpox. As a result, the nation's public health infrastructure has become a key player in the realm of homeland security.

Public health is "as important to homeland defense as the military is to international defense," noted Thomas Burke, PhD, MPH, professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "And really, what this means is that the long-neglected infrastructure is finally getting the attention it deserves."

"It's a sign of how the times have changed," agreed Public Health Service historian John Parascandola, PhD. With conventional weapons, there was less of a role for public health. But now there is a role -- preventing and containing the spread of disease, he said. [...]

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