What is the “New Public Health”?

What is public health?

At the time of the formation of the World Health Organization in 1946, one of its first achievements was to create a brilliant new definition of health: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”1 This definition has lasted 7 decades without modification as it reflects the multidimensional nature of health. If it ha...

What is a public health "emergency"?

O March 27, 2014, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick declared the state’s opioid-addiction epidemic a public health emergency. The declaration empowered the Massachusetts public health commissioner to use emergency powers to expand access to naloxone, an opioid antagonist that can reverse overdoses; develop a plan to accelerate the mandatory use of prescription monitoring by physicians and ph...

What is public health legal preparedness?

Legal preparedness has gained recognition as a critical component of comprehensive public health preparedness for public health emergencies triggered by infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters, chemical and radiologic disasters, terrorism and other causes. Public health practitioners and their colleagues in other disciplines can prepare for and respond to such an event effectively only ...

health communication what it is and what is not

‘What counts is what works’? New Labour and partnerships in public health

Partnership working has been a central feature of New Labour’s approach to the delivery of health and social policy since 1997. A number of partnership-based initiatives have centred on reducing health inequalities and improving health. This article reports on the findings from a systematic review of the impact of partnership working on public health, and considers whether these partnerships ha...