The first digital-only ebook taster of Unequal health: The scandal of our times by Danny Dorling. Competitively priced, it gives a flavour of one of the major themes: public health and contains three chapters from the book, preceded by an all-new introduction specially written by Danny Dorling. This ‘must-read’ will introduce an even wider readership to his work.
17 TWO Public health and a public health system As already noted in Chapter One, public health is a contested term, without a single or a simple definition. Its amoeba-like nature means its parameters change in line with perceptions of the key influences on the health and wellbeing of populations, while the components of a ‘public health system’ not only reflect how public health is defined but also inform the myriad of organisational routes through which public health problems are galvanised and addressed. In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO
Drawing on in-depth case studies across England, this book argues that governance and population health are inextricably linked. Using original research, it shows how these links can be illustrated at a local level through commissioning practice related to health and wellbeing. Exploring the impact of governance on decision- making, Governance, commissioning and public health analyses how principles, such as social justice, and governance arrangements, including standards and targets, influence local strategies and priorities for public health investment. In developing ‘public health governance’ as a critical concept, the study demonstrates the complexity of the governance landscape for public health and the leadership qualities required to negotiate it. This book is essential reading for students, academics, practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in governance and decision-making for public health.
Public health in the early 21st century increasingly considers how social inequalities impact on individual health, moving away from the focus on how disease relates to the individual person. This ‘new public health’ identifies how social, economic and political factors affect the level and distribution of individual health, through their effects on individual behaviours, the social groups people belong to, the character of relationships to others and the characteristics of the societies in which people live. The rising social inequalities that can be seen in nearly every country in the world today present not just a moral danger, but a mortal danger as well.
“Social inequality and public health” brings together the latest research findings from some of the most respected medical and social scientists in the world. It surveys four pathways to understanding the social determinants of health: differences in individual health behaviours; group advantage and disadvantage; psychosocial factors in individual health; and healthy and unhealthy societies, shedding light on the costs and consequences of today’s high-inequality social models.
This exciting book brings together leaders in the field discussing their latest research and is a must-read for anyone interested in public health and social inequalities internationally.
1 ONE Introduction: Why public health ethics? Stephen Peckham and Alison Hann While ethics has been a central consideration of medical research and healthcare delivery, the application of ethics to public health policy and practice is less well developed. There is, however, an increasing interest in public health ethics, reflecting a renewed international policy emphasis on public health, debates about the effectiveness of public health interventions and discussions at a global level about public health risks and action. Public health ethics is now part
Including the voices of key protagonists in the development of the public health workforce, this book is an important addition to the history of public health in England. It charts events leading to the unique achievement, from 2003, of specialist status, equivalent to public health medical consultants, for those from non-medical backgrounds. Setting these changes in context it discusses implications for practitioners and the wider UK public health workforce. A lively and comprehensive review of policy change, Multidisciplinary public health: Understanding the development of the modern workforce concludes with a reflection on the new public health system under way in England, making useful comparisons with the rest of the UK. This is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in public health, including public health academics and relevant postgraduate students.
People-centred public health examines how members of the public can be involved in delivering health improvement, primarily as volunteers or lay health workers. With a foreword by Professor Sir Michael Marmot and Dr Mike Grady, this timely book draws on a major study of lay engagement in public health, using case studies and real life examples to provide a comprehensive and accessible overview of policy, practice and research in this area. In an economic and political climate where there is renewed interest in the role of the citizen, the authors challenge old orthodoxies in public health and build a coherent argument for radical change in the way public agencies support lay action. The book is aimed at readers with an academic or professional interest in public health and/or community involvement, including practitioners and managers within public services and the voluntary sector, and post-graduate and undergraduate students studying public health, health promotion, public sector management, social policy and community work.
IntroductIon Public health: Cholera to the Coalition This is the first of three short ‘Policy Press bytes’, writing taken from a much longer work on health inequalities and public health (Dorling, 2013). Here it is argued that in order to better understand the causes and consequences of our current public health crisis, and how it might in future be alleviated, it can help to look to the past. When cholera struck Britain the causes were partly nineteenth-century globalisation aiding the spread of a disease from abroad, and the creation at home of
The UK government’s reforms of the NHS and public health system require partnerships if they are to succeed. Those partnerships concerned with public health are especially important and are deemed to be a ’good thing’ which add, rather than consume, value. Yet the significant emphasis on partnership working to secure effective policy and service delivery exists despite the evidence testifying to how difficult it is to make partnerships work or achieve results.
Partnership working in public health presents the findings from a detailed study of public health partnerships in England. The lessons from the research are used to explore the government’s changes in public health now being implemented, most of which centre on new partnerships called Health and Wellbeing Boards that have been established to work differently from their predecessors.The book assesses their likely impact and the implications for the future of public health partnerships. Drawing on systems thinking, it argues that partnerships can only succeed if they work in quite different ways. The book will therefore appeal to the public health community and students of health policy.
53 THREE Public health partnerships: what’s the prognosis? This chapter reports on a systematic literature review of public health partnerships in England between 1997 and 2010 under the auspices of three Labour governments. The review was undertaken as the first stage of the National Institute for Health Research Service Delivery and Organisation (NIHR SDO) (now Health Services & Delivery Research) programme study. As we explained in the last chapter, partnership working was a central feature of New Labour’s approach to the delivery of health and social
