Human animals, as a rule or generalization, do not live (or behave as if living) in herds,* in short, they are not herd animals. That being true, the expression “herd immunity” in bio-statistical epidemiology and public health in general is misleading or simply a sloppy or awkward or (for me at least) grating expression that should be replaced (as occasionally it is in fact) by “population immunity” (the term ‘population’ has a specific meaning in public health law with regard to the state or government and its public health duties, including population-based scientific research which I briefly address in a piece on a philosophically sensitive definition of same**). However, at least metaphorically or on rare occasions, it could be the case that “some human groupings may behave more like herds.”
* “A herd is a large group of animals. The term is used for mammals, particularly hoofed animals. Herding is a good example of collective animal behavior. Other terms are used for similar types of behavior in other types of animal. For example, a large group of birds is usually called a flock (this may also refer to certain mammals as well) and a large group of carnivores is usually called a pack. In addition, special collective nouns may be used for particular cases: for example a flock of geese, if not in flight, is sometimes called a gaggle. However, in theoretical discussions in behavioural ecology, the term ‘herd’ is used for all these kinds of assemblage. A herd may also refer to one that tends and cares for such groups (i.e., shepherds tend to sheep, and goatherds tend to goats, etc.).
When an association of animals (or, by extension, people) is described as a ‘herd,’ that means that the group tends to act together (for example, all moving in the same direction at a given time), but that this does not occur as a result of planning or co-ordination. Rather, each individual is choosing behaviour that corresponds to that of the majority of other members, possibly through imitation or possibly because all are responding to the same external circumstances. A herd can be contrasted with a coordinated group where individuals have distinct roles. Many human groupings, such as an army detachments or sports teams, show such coordination and differentiation of roles, but so do some animal groupings such as those of eusocial insects, which are co-ordinated through pheromones and other forms of animal communication. Conversely, some human groupings may behave more like herds.”
** For legal and ethical purposes we need to remind ourselves not only that populations consist of individuals (as persons), but that these individuals are members of various kinds of communities, including those deemed, say, disadvantaged or vulnerable for public health reasons. See, for example, Lawrence O. Gostin, Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, 2000): 124-127. Furthermore, biomedical epidemiology needs to be supplemented with or integrated into social epidemiology in public health. Thus the biomedical bookkeeping used in the medical clinic, for example, which points to “discrete pathophysiological conditions,” such as cancer, heart disease, and so forth as causes of death must be replaced by public health explanations which examine socio-economic, environmental, and behavioral factors (separately or in combination) which get to the root causes of many diseases and their associated mortality rates. Please see, Lawrence O. Gostin, ed. Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press, 2002): 47-65.
Further Reading
- Anand, Sudhir, Fabienne Peter, and Amartya Sen, eds. Public Health, Ethics, and Equity (Oxford University Press, 2004).
- Berkman, Lisa F., Ichiro Kawachi, and M. Maria Glymour, eds. Social Epidemiology (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2014).
- Krieger, Nancy, ed. Embodying Inequality: Epidemiologic Perspectives (Routledge, 2016 [2005]).
- Venkatapuram, Sridhar. Health Justice: An Argument for the Capabilities Approach (Polity Press, 2011).
- Waitzkin, Howard. Health Care under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health (Monthly Review Press, 2018).
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