Kramer, MichaelBaird, Erin2017-12-132017-12-132017https://hdl.handle.net/11244/52770Public health initiatives are spurred from three dominant political ideologies—neoliberalism, social justice, and pluralism—that influence the policy goals and methods. Neoliberalism, in particular, is the dominant socio-political framework that argues the free market is the best purveyor of individual freedoms. Neoliberal constructs have influenced much of the political environment, and contributed to the consumer model of health. Situated in neoliberalism, modern public health initiatives increasingly place onus on the individual as the solution for collective public health initiatives. However, the structural and interpretive influences of broader political philosophies and individual meaning making on the understanding of public health issues as these issues become more personal, is largely unknown. Thus, a case study of the public health initiative to reduce the number of Cesarean births was selected to investigate the ways in which interpretive structural resources shape women’s meaning making about their birth plans. 36 pregnant and recently pregnant women were given journal prompts over a seven-week period, and a constant comparative analysis was employed to explore the ways in which meaning was constructed. Findings included support for neoliberal Discourse that guides understanding, and support for increasing political distrust of institutions, interests, and officials. Findings also presented a wealth of social conflict, including mommy wars over birth plans and horror stories used to socialize women into motherhood. Due to the number of choices afforded to women, public health issues such as childbirth presented more opportunities for fragmented meaning than for shared meaning. Without social consensus, collective public health goals suffer from lack of coordinated and situated meaning.communicationchildbirthconstant comparative analysisneoliberalism