Accounting for the Influence of American Individualism on Public Health Practice: Lessons from COVID-19 in the United States

This study seeks to understand how public health leaders and more fully take into account the influence of American Individualism on public health practice. The values and ethics of public health as a discipline is at odds with the powerful and prominent cultural narrative of American Individualism. This misalignment is weakens the population level aim of public health and prioritizes individual freedom and ideas above the needs of the whole public. But American Individualism is normalized and permanent part of how Americans understand the world. Public health leaders must better engage, communicate, and act within the context of American Individualism, even though it does not align with there approach to health and health improvement.