Open AccessEnsuring Compliance With Quarantine by Undocumented Immigrants and Other Vulnerable Groups: Public Health Versus Politics
Author(s) -
Mark A. Rothstein,
Christine Nero Coughlin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
american journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.284
H-Index - 264
eISSN - 1541-0048
pISSN - 0090-0036
DOI - 10.2105/ajph.2019.305201
Subject(s) - quarantine , deportation , politics , government (linguistics) , public health , immigration , compliance (psychology) , political science , medicine , environmental health , criminology , law , sociology , psychology , social psychology , nursing , linguistics , philosophy , pathology
A successful quarantine requires a high rate of compliance by individuals with potential exposure to a communicable disease.Many individuals would be reluctant to comply with a quarantine because they fear that contact with government officials will place them in legal, personal, or economic jeopardy. These include undocumented immigrants and individuals with a substance use disorder. For a quarantine to succeed, individuals must be granted temporary immunity from arrest, deportation, or similar adverse consequences, but doing so will be politically unpopular.We argue that public health considerations must take precedence over politics in protecting the health of the public.