Faith-Based Organizations and Public Health: Another Facet of the Public Health Dialogue

Public health in the United States is being deconstructed by contentious rhetoric and policy. Environmental protections are curtailed; progress in health insurance coverage stalls; Medicaid reduces access to minorities; contraception and abortion dwindle in already inauspicious places; and protective regulations for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender patients and workers are rolled back. At the same time, there is a raging epidemic of drug addiction with no end in sight, and legislators are dragging their feet to pass laws preventing gun violence, even though, as this Journal has shown, an overwhelming majority of Americans can agree on many straightforward policies. The scenery is rather bleak but stresses an important principle of public health: always bring together all of the individuals and organizations for whom health equity matters