title: The unfulfilled promise of public health: déjà vu all over again.
abstract: Many complain about public health's weak infrastructure and poor capacity to respond to threats of bioterrorism. Such complaints are but the anxiety-heightened expression of a periodic rediscovery of the deficiencies and unfulfilled promise of U.S. public health. An overview of more than two centuries suggests that where we are now with public health has been shaped by our earlier, limited, and crisis-focused responses to changing disease threats. We have failed to sustain progress in any coherent manner. If we do not wish to repeat past mistakes, we should learn lessons from the past to guide us in the future.
authors.affiliation: History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fee
authors.forename: Theodore M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000266:history; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000266:history; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000266:history; D006291:Health Policy / Q000266:history*; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009310:National Health Insurance, United States / Q000266:history; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000266:history*; D012941:Social Responsibility; D014481:United States