title: The new left and public health the Health Policy Advisory Center, community organizing, and the big business of health, 1967-1975.
abstract: Soon after its founding in the politically tumultuous late 1960s, the Health Policy Advisory Center (Health/PAC) and its Health/PAC Bulletin became the strategic hub of an intense urban social movement around health care equality in New York City. I discuss its early formation, its intellectual influences, and the analytical framework that it devised to interpret power relations in municipal health care. I also describe Health/PAC's interpretation of health activism, focusing in particular on a protracted struggle regarding Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. Over the years, the organization's stance toward community-oriented health politics evolved considerably, from enthusiastically promoting its potential to later confronting its limits. I conclude with a discussion of Health/PAC's major theoretical contributions, often taken for granted today, and its book American Health Empire.
authors.affiliation: Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, 208 College Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379, USA. merlinc@sas.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Merlin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chowkwanyun
mesh_terms: D003256:Community Participation / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods; D019981:Health Care Sector / Q000266:history* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006291:Health Policy / Q000266:history*; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009519:New York City; D011057:Politics; D017149:Private Sector / Q000266:history; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*; D017150:Public Sector / Q000266:history; D012111:Residence Characteristics