Dental Sciences, Newcastle University, UK.
Community Dent Health. 2023 Nov 30;40(4):248-251. doi: 10.1922/CDH_00077Lowery04.
What are mini-publics and under what circumstances could they be applied to public health dentistry? This question is explored with reference to water fluoridation in England, a policy intervention characterised by a visceral politics that has embedded a systemic preference for non-decision-making. Mini-publics can nevertheless inform decision-making by inviting a representative sample of the affected citizenry to consider the available evidence and come to a set of conclusions and/or recommendations that if all parties cannot agree, none can reasonably object. In doing so, mini-publics have the potential to break the policy deadlock by adding an additional layer of legitimacy to the decision-making process, albeit this is dependent upon decision-makers granting value to their findings.
迷你公投是什么，在什么情况下可以将其应用于公共卫生牙科？本文参考英格兰的水氟化政策干预措施，探讨了这一问题。该政策干预措施的特点是政治上存在强烈的分歧，系统地倾向于不做决策。然而，迷你公投可以通过邀请受影响公民的代表性样本来考虑现有证据，并得出一系列结论和/或建议，从而为决策提供信息，如果各方无法达成一致，那么任何人都不能合理地反对。这样，迷你公投有可能通过为决策过程增加额外的合法性，打破政策僵局，尽管这取决于决策者是否重视他们的发现。
