War, Tropical Disease, and the Emergence of National Public Health Capacity in the United States

Sledge, Daniel

doi:10.1017/s0898588x12000107

Stud. Am. Pol. Dev.

2012

DOI: 10.1017/s0898588x12000107

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War, Tropical Disease, and the Emergence of National Public Health Capacity in the United States

Daniel Sledge

Abstract: This article analyzes the emergence of national public health capacity in the United States. Tracing the transformation of the federal government's role in public health from the 1910s through the emergence of the CDC during World War II, I argue that national public health capacity emerged, to a great extent, out of the attempts of government officials to deal with the problem of tropical disease within the southern United States during periods of mobilization for war.

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Cited by 3 publications

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State Preventive Medicine: Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800–1840

Rubin

2020

Stud. Am. Pol. Dev.

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Despite growing awareness of the American state's active role in the early nineteenth century, scholars have tended to ignore the early republic's public health apparatus. The few studies that do chronicle antebellum health initiatives confine themselves to programs intended to directly reward citizens—and particularly those who contributed politically or economically to the nation's founding and expansion. As this detailed study of the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832 makes clear, however, antebellum policymakers saw value in providing medical care to those outside their settler citizenry. Blending liberal, republican, and ascriptive ideas, the vaccination program joined two competing political logics: one emphasizing the humanity of indigenous people and the importance of providing for their welfare, and the other prioritizing the state's interest in an efficient “removal” process. Evidencing far more autonomy and administrative capacity than the average nineteenth-century bureaucracy, the War Department played a pivotal role in petitioning Congress for, and ultimately administering, the vaccination program. Unwilling to cede regulatory power over indigenous health to more proximate local governments or private parties, the War Department preferred its own military manpower—a decision that would profoundly shape the design and reception of subsequent Native health programs.

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State Preventive Medicine: Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800–1840

Rubin

2020

Stud. Am. Pol. Dev.

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Firm-Led Malaria Prevention in the United States, 1910-1920

Carson

2016

Am. J. Law. Med.

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In the absence of capable government services, a railroad company in Texas and multiple cotton mills in North Carolina successfully prevented malaria in the early twentieth century. This Article looks through the lens of economics to understand how and why people had the incentive to privately coordinate malaria prevention during this time, but not after. These firms, motivated by increases in productivity and profit, implemented extensive anti-malaria programs and used their hierarchical organizational structures to monitor performance. The factors underlying the decline of private prevention include a fall in the overall rate of malaria, the increasing presence of the federal government, and technological innovations that lowered exposure to mosquitoes. Understanding how, why, and when firms can prevent diseases has important implications for current disease policy, especially where governments, international organizations, and technologies are not enough.

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Private Malaria Prevention in the United States, 1910-1920

Carson

2015

SSRN Journal

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War, Tropical Disease, and the Emergence of National Public Health Capacity in the United States

Cited by 3 publications

References 30 publications

State Preventive Medicine: Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800–1840

State Preventive Medicine: Public Health, Indian Removal, and the Growth of State Capacity, 1800–1840

Firm-Led Malaria Prevention in the United States, 1910-1920

Private Malaria Prevention in the United States, 1910-1920

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