School of Nursing and Health Studies, University of Washington Bothell, Bothell, USA.
Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Glob Public Health. 2021 Aug-Sep;16(8-9):1424-1438. doi: 10.1080/17441692.2021.1902549. Epub 2021 Mar 19.
The COVID-19 crisis emerged during a divisive time in American politics. We argue that to unravel the American COVID-19 crisis-and to craft effective responses-we need a more sophisticated understanding of the political culture of public health crises. We use data from interviews and online media to examine symbolic representation of public health phenomena (masks; public health institutions) within the first months of the US epidemic. We show how political scripts about pandemic responses are shaped by, and align with, deeply-rooted social values and political cultures. Social processes of meaning-making help explain the evolution of increasingly partisan public health discourse regarding topics like masking and institutional trust. We highlight the lack of memorialization of deaths in America-that has not acquired the same polarized political meaning as other issues-to consider how and why certain issues gain political valence, and what opportunities certain acts of politicization provide in shifting public discourse. The coronavirus pandemic challenged the science of public health strategy, and the legitimacy of its institutions, with devastating consequences. Anticipating and understanding the central role of political cultures, cultural scripts, and meanings in positioning public health measures is essential for more effective responses to COVID-19 and future pandemics.
新冠疫情危机出现在美国政治分裂的时期。我们认为，要解开美国的新冠危机——并制定有效的应对措施——我们需要更深入地了解公共卫生危机的政治文化。我们使用采访和在线媒体的数据，考察了美国疫情头几个月期间公共卫生现象（口罩；公共卫生机构）的象征性表现。我们展示了关于大流行病应对措施的政治脚本是如何受到根深蒂固的社会价值观和政治文化的影响，并与之保持一致的。意义构建的社会过程有助于解释与口罩和机构信任等主题相关的公共卫生话语日益党派化的演变。我们强调了美国缺乏对死亡的纪念——这并没有像其他问题那样获得同样两极分化的政治意义——以考虑为什么某些问题会获得政治价值，以及某些政治化行为在改变公众话语方面提供了哪些机会。冠状病毒大流行不仅对公共卫生战略的科学性提出了挑战，还对其机构的合法性提出了挑战，造成了毁灭性的后果。对于更有效地应对新冠疫情和未来的大流行而言，预测和理解政治文化、文化脚本和意义在定位公共卫生措施方面的核心作用至关重要。
