After the Cure: Managing AIDS and Other Public Health Crises / Edition 1

by Martin A. Levin, Mary Bryna Sanger

Overview

As alarming stories about new pathogens like the Ebola virus or Mad Cow Disease fill today's headlines, scientists face a test of their abilities to contain them. But public health officials face a crisis of their own, because even when effective treatments become available, efforts to control disease often fall short.

After the Cure was written to improve the prospects for effective management of AIDS and other public health crises. Martin Levin and Mary Bryna Sanger draw on cases of previous large-scale public health initiatives to show how management effectiveness can meet threats to public health.

Focusing on AIDS as the most compelling contemporary example of the need for change, the authors advocate a commonsense approach that seeks to minimize the chances of failure. They encourage health officials to exercise "strategic skepticism" by developing plans that anticipate potential problems-such as scientific controversy over a vaccine's effectiveness or media sensationalism-which could arise from flaws in program design and implementation.

Case studies involving polio, swine flu, childhood immunization, reemergent TB, and the early AIDS experiences demonstrate the variety of managerial problems that can confront such initiatives. By reviewing the lessons of these cases, the authors suggest how their approach can be applied to the management of AIDS and future public health threats. They then present both a critique of the early mismanagement of the AIDS crisis and a scenario for "the day after an AIDS vaccine is discovered."

Because epidemics are likely to increase, After the Cure clearly demonstrates the importance of anticipating obstacles to their management through skillful scenario writing. Combining careful analysis with practical advice, it shows that in the public health arena, management matters as much as medicine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700610235
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	07/13/2000
Series:	Studies in Government and Public Policy Series
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Taming the Management Beast: Approaching Management with Strategic Skepticism

2. The Successful Management of Polio

3. The Swine Flu Immunization Program

4. The Clinton Administration’s Childhood Immunization Policy

5. Controlling Reemergent TB: Successful Management of an Impossible Job

6. Predicting the Future from the Past: The Early Mismanagement of the AIDS Crisis

7. Scenario Building: The Day After an AIDS Vaccine Is Discovered

8. Curing the Disease: Prospects for Improving the Management of Public Health Initiatives

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

". . . of great value in demonstrating the many difficulties of large-scale public health interventions that necessarily involve governments at multiple levels, competing scientific establishments, the media in search of powerful stories whose complexity is poorly understood, and populations with differing interests, hopes, and fears."—Health Affairs

"This enlightening book will significantly advance the ongoing scholarly and public debate about what management can and cannot achieve in public health. It is a timely addition to a growing literature on which political scientists, public management specialists, and practitioners can draw for good counsel."—Christopher Foreman, author of Plagues, Products, and Politics: Emergent Public Health Hazards and National Policymaking

From the Publisher

Envisioning a day in which there actually is an effective AIDS vaccine, Levin (political science, Brandeis U.) and Sanger (urban policy analysis, New School U.) foresee significant distribution, economic, and political impediments to the successful inoculation of the United States population. They review a number of large scale public health initiatives and draw conclusions about how to best implement the management of an AIDS cure. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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