Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #104229

Dwayne C. Turner, PhD, JD, MPH and Kimberly Tendrich, JD. AG Holley State Hospital, Florida Department of Health, 1199 West Lantana Road, Lantana, FL 33462, 561-540-3750, Dwayne_Turner@doh.state.fl.us

The ability of public health to deny or restrict an individual's liberty to protect the public's health differs from state to state. Direct Observation Therapy (DOT) is an accepted strategy for some or all cases of TB. However, commitment laws for non-compliant infectious patients, if existent, prompt more controversy. In this paper, we compare the TB control laws of Georgia and Florida. Using case examples, this paper will address the primary legal/social functions of police powers to deny or restrict an individual's liberty and compare them with the functions of public health. Legal/social functions of police powers include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence (specific and general), and rehabilitation. Two functions of public health are disease prevention and treatment. We will conclude that the use of police powers in disease prevention and treatment should only be used when one or more of the functions and purposes of police powers overlap with the two functions of public health. Only in the area of overlap can public health ethically invoke its police power in the control of a given infectious disease or in the control of behaviors that spread disease.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize ethical issues related to public health's police powers.
• identify, through case studies, where the functions of police powers intersect with the functions of public health.
• Determine when it is appropriate to invoke public health's police powers in the context of infectious diseases.

Keywords: Bioethics, Tuberculosis

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation