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Investigating ‘community’ through a history of responses to asbestos-related disease in an Australian industrial region
journal contribution
posted on 2008-01-01, 00:00 authored by C Hunter, Tony LaMontagneTony LaMontagneThe government of the State of Victoria has been slow to acknowledge the social costs of asbestos-related diseases (ARD) in the Latrobe Valley. Despite the emphasis on ‘community’ in the discipline of public health and in public health services since the 1970s, ARD was only recognised as a community-wide health problem because of the advocacy of people directly affected by it. An historical view of responses to ARD in a community established as an appendage to the publicly owned power industry and infused with an ethic of public service, shows that contests over the definition of ‘community’ lay at the heart of these responses. It also shows that such disputes did not arise only from the reluctance of authorities to acknowledge the problems resulting from the extensive use of asbestos in power stations. The paper highlights the political nature of the notion of ‘community’ and in doing so raises questions that have implications beyond its narrow regional focus.
History
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Social history of medicineVolume
21Issue
2Pagination
361 - 379Publisher
Oxford University PressLocation
Oxford, UKPublisher DOI
ISSN
0951-631XLanguage
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalUsage metrics
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