‘Not Routinely Available’? Governance and Mosquito Borne Diseases in Florida

• In Event: The Intrinsic Relationship between Local Politics and Public Health

Abstract

Public health capacity can be placed in local public health departments, or alternative bureaucracies. Provision of local services through special district (SD) governments has been widely studied in local politics. What has not been examined is the implications of SD governance for the provision of public health services. Public health services are often categorically different from other types of local government services because they address problems affecting the entire local-population. Siloing public health governance may influence not only agency capacity to carry out tasks, but effectiveness and equity of public healths’ ability to address population-level problems. We examine SD governance of local mosquito control in Florida, to analyze differences in policy-design and implementation between SDs and non-SDs across counties. SDs are primarily located in wealthy districts; have substantially greater resources; and limited-sub-county service-areas. Jurisdictions outside of SD service-provision often have no local-mosquito control governance, relying on intergovernmental, voluntary, services.

Authors

• Holly Jarman, University of Michigan

• Phillip M. Singer, University of Utah

• Charley Ellen Willison, Cornell University