Abstract
In this chapter, we explore conceptualisations of the public, of public health and the relationship between these. We suggest there are three key ways in which ‘the public’ is seen: as a collection of people; as a space for action; and as a set of values. Likewise, public health can be understood in terms of: the challenges it faced or faces; the systems employed to deal with these; and as a kind of philosophy or outlook. We also look at the changing nature of the relationship between the public and public health. We begin in the nineteenth century, move on to the early twentieth century, and map out the broad elements of the dynamic surrounding public health and the public after 1945.
Highlights
In this chapter, we explore conceptualisations of the public, of public health and the relationship between these
In the final section of the chapter, we look at how the relationship between the public and public health in Britain has changed over time
As we suggested in the Introduction, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to examining the nature of the relationship between the public and public health
Summary
Williams’s analysis of the ‘masses’, the historian David Cantor notes that there was no such thing as ‘the public’, only ways of seeing it (Cantor 2002). The public as the people, citizens and/or the population; secondly, the public as a space for action, intervention and service provision; and as a set of collective values, often, but not always, opposed to private interests These groups of meanings reflect the different senses of the public discussed in the literature and take us beyond it, towards thinking about how ‘the public’ is deployed in specific contexts and how this changes over time. What Oosterhuis and Huisman term ‘neo-republican citizenship’ emphasised civic responsibilities and obligations in relation to health They argue that neoliberal ideas about the value of market models of healthcare provision and the importance of individual choice and autonomy combined with a ‘new public health’ that placed the responsibility for managing public health risks squarely on the citizen rather than society (Oosterhuis and Huisman 2014). When viewed as either populations or citizens, the public was not merely a passive actor
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