Health, disease and the goal of public health

Abstract

Introduction What is the ultimate goal of public health activities, such as health promotion, health education or health protection? Or rather, what should these activities aim at, what ‘values’ should public health workers try to realize or maximize? To suggest that the goal of public health is to promote or improve population health is not very informative, at least not before we establish what is meant by ‘population health’ in this context, or rather, what the phrase should mean in this context. Moreover, there might be some appropriate goals that are not really possible to subsume under this heading, at least not without stretching the ordinary meaning of the phrase a little too far. That is, the central question of this chapter cannot be regarded as conceptual. To come up with a reasonable view on what the ultimate goals of public health are, we need to look at what more specific suggestions have been made. Among the different goals that have been suggested, there are at least three that are worth considering more closely, namely (1) to improve the average level of health (or the like) in the relevant population, (2) to reduce health inequalities between groups or individuals and (3) to create certain types of opportunities for health, most often equal opportunities. It is possible that we should add (4) to improve the health level of the worst-off groups.