TL;DRAbstract
The concepts of risk and precaution are central to public health policy, and therefore to philosophical and ethical reflection on such policy. A wide range of public health activities – such as health and safety legislation, food standards monitoring and the emerging field of public health genomics – are explicitly framed in terms of risk-reduction and risk-management. Furthermore, we can use the concept of 'risk' to understand public health policies that are not normally framed in these terms. For example, draining a malarial swamp can be understood as eliminating health-risks, as can a policy of compulsory vaccination. The control, minimization or elimination of health-risks can, then, be seen as the shared concern of the heterogeneous activities that comprise public health policy.
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The concepts of risk and precaution are central to public health policy, and therefore to philosophical and ethical reflection on such policy. A wide range of public health activities – such as health and safety legislation, food standards monitoring and the emerging field of public health genomics – are explicitly framed in terms of risk-reduction and risk-management. Furthermore, we can use the concept of 'risk' to understand public health policies that are not normally framed in these terms. For example, draining a malarial swamp can be understood as eliminating health-risks, as can a policy of compulsory vaccination. The control, minimization or elimination of health-risks can, then, be seen as the shared concern of the heterogeneous activities that comprise public health policy.
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