Ever Evolving Concept of a New Public Health

Abstract

In the second edition of The New Public Health, authors Tulchinsky and Varavikova present a comprehensive overview of the evolution of public health and health issues. Their book succeeds in introducing the broad areas of this expanding field as they seek to balance traditional concerns for populations with more modern concerns for individuals and human rights. One of the main strengths of this text is the authors‟ coverage of many contemporary public health topics, such as specialized communities, which include the mentally ill, homosexual men and women, immigrants, and Native Americans. However, the authors provide very limited criticism of prior mishaps in public health and little emphasis on health promotion, a major component of current approaches. Instead, there is an overemphasis on an epidemiological perspective of many public health topics. Admission of failures to address certain issues adequately, a more robust presentation of the premises of health promotion, and more attention to ecological models of disease prevention would have strengthened the second edition of The New Public Health. Perhaps the authors will include these dimensions of the 21st century in subsequent editions of their valuable book.