During the COVID-19 pandemic, a person approached a female US public health official in a grocery store, complaining about the ongoing disease-mitigation efforts. As the person issued threats, they revealed that they knew her children’s names and when they played in their backyard. Later, the children’s schedules and some personal details appeared on social media, a practice known as doxxing.
This is one example of the harassment that many local and state public health officials endured during the pandemic.
“That was shocking,” Marian Moser Jones, PhD, MPH, associate professor of health services management and policy at The Ohio State University College of Public Health, told CIDRAP News. “Health department officials, especially local health departments that are strapped for money already, they don’t have the capabilities to deal with that.”
Moser Jones and colleagues interviewed 109 public health officials from 18 US regions to understand the backlash they faced during the pandemic. The research was published this month in the American Journal of Public Health.
“These are public servants who are appointed, not elected, who are used to just serving quietly and doing public service,” said Moser Jones, lead author of the study.
‘Public health is not the enemy’
Of the 109 public health officials, 76% experienced what researchers called “extraordinary backlash” such as threats and harassment. About half, 47%, experienced “undermining backlash,” which includes excessive data requests, demands for policy changes, and publicly questioning of their expertise.