Citation

Naumova EN. J. Public Health Policy 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group -- Palgrave-Macmillan)

DOI

10.1057/s41271-023-00425-6

PMID

37393422

Abstract

Public health policies are about people, especially those who are under duress or at risk for harm and have limited options to express their needs and perspectives. We often call those people 'vulnerable', using this term as an umbrella for many settings that are detrimental to human health. People become 'vulnerable' when their livelihoods are destroyed by an environmental disaster, climate calamity, or a military conflict. People forced to leave their homes or forced to stay in harmful conditions are called 'displaced', 'encamped', 'migrant', 'refugee', or 'trapped' populations. The adjectives vary, some call for compassion, and some become synonymous with 'unwanted' and 'unwelcomed'. The language could be a tool to mobilize support, build social accountability, and offer legal protections. It could be also used as a tool to provoke and amplify distress among both hosts and incomers.

People became vulnerable due to actions of people. In Africa, almost one-third of near 90-million world's refugee population are internally displaced, with millions of new displacements triggered by increasing insecurity and human rights violations. After a decade of war and health care destruction in Syria, millions became migrants. Even though health facilities are meant to be protected from attack under the Geneva Conventions and should be safe havens in times of great need, the world lacks safe heavens. The dam destroyed in southern Ukraine on 6 June 2023 converted residents of affected areas, within hours, into victims of a major man-made environmental catastrophe. An environmental disaster weaponized--this is how human history will mark the Kakhovka Dam disaster...

Language: en