Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-89wxm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T18:42:17.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Looking Forward to the Past? The Politics of Public Health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Rob Baggott
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the role of political agents, institutions, circumstances, and ideas in the development of public health policies in Britain. The first part attempts to define public health. The second section of the article looks at the experience of the Victorian public health movement. The final part considers the re-emergence of the public health perspective. The underlying theme of the article is that an awareness of the political dimension, both contemporary and historical, improves our understanding of developments in the field of public health. The main conclusions reached are: first, that given the formidable political obstacles which exist, public health reform will only succeed if the reformers themselves operate with full awareness of the political dimension; second, that the modern public health debate is unlikely to be resolved in the short term.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1991 , pp. 191 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ashton, J. and Seymour, H. (1988), The New Public Health, Open University, Milton Keynes.Google ScholarPubMed
Baggott, R. (1987), ‘Government–industry relations in Britain: the regulation of the tobacco industry’, Policy and Politics, 15: 3, 137–46.Google Scholar
Baggott, R. (1990), Alcohol, Politics and Social Policy, Avebury, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Baggott, R. (1991), ‘The policymaking process in British central government’, Talking Politics (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Barclay, S. (1989), ‘Smear campaign’, The Listener, 2 11, 14.Google Scholar
Black, D. (1968), The Logic of Medicine, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Brockington, C.F. (1965), Public Health in the Nineteenth Century, Livingstone, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Cannon, G. (1987), The Politics of Food, Century, London.Google Scholar
Chadwick, E. (1842), Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, Poor Law Commission, House of Lords Sessional Papers 26, 1.Google Scholar
Cochrane, A. (1972), Efficiency and Effectiveness: Random Reflections of Health Services, Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 7047 (1977), Prevention and Health. HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 7615 (1979), Report of the Royal Commission on the National Health Service, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 9716 (1986), Report of the Committee of Inquiry into an Outbreak of Food Poisoning at Stanley Royd Hospital, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 9772 (1986), First Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Outbreak of Legionnaires Disease at Stafford in April 1985, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 249 (1987), Promoting Better Health, The Government's Programme for Improving Primary Care, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 289 (1988), Public Health in England, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 555 (1989), Working for Patients, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 732 (1989), Food Safety: Protecting the Consumer, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 848 (1989), Government Response to the Sixth Report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee 1988/9, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cm 849 (1989), Caring for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Conservative Party (1987), The Next Moves Forward, Conservative Party, London.Google Scholar
Currie, E. (1989), Lifelines: Politics and Health 1986–8, Sidgewick and Jackson, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1976a), Prevention and Health: Everybody's Business, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1976b), Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England: A Consultative Document, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1977), Priorities in the Health and Social Services: The Way Forward, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1978), Eating for Health, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1979), Report of a Research Working Group on Health Inequalities, DHSS, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1981a), Avoiding Heart Attacks, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1981b), Drinking Sensibly, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1981c), Care in Action, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Department of Health (1989), On the State of Public Health 1988: Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Dobson, A. (1990), Green Political Thought, Unwin Hyman, London.Google Scholar
Doig, A. (1990), ‘Routine, Crisis and Muddle: Mishandling the Egg Crisis’, Teaching Public Administration, x: i, 15–26.Google Scholar
Doyal, L. (1979), The Political Economy of Health, Pluto, London.Google Scholar
Doyal, L. (1983), Cancer in Britain: The Politics of Prevention, Pluto, London.Google Scholar
Engel, G.I. (1977), ‘The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine’, Science, 4286, 129–36.Google Scholar
Finer, S.E. (1952), The Life and Times of Sir Edwin Chadwick, Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Flinn, M.W. (1968), Public Health Reform in Britain, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Frazer, W. (1950), A Study of English Public Health 1834–1939, Balliere Tindall Cox, London.Google Scholar
Ham, C. and Mitchell, J. (1990), ‘A force to reckon with’, Health Service Journal, 1 02, 164–5.Google Scholar
Hodgkinson, R. (1967), The Origins of the NHS: The Medical Services of the Poor Law, Wellcome Foundation, London.Google Scholar
Hodgkinson, R. (1973), Public Health in the Victorian Age, Gregg, Farnborough.Google Scholar
Hollis, P. (1974), Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England, Edward Arnold, London.Google Scholar
Honigsbaum, F. (1970), The Struggle for the Ministry of Health, Occasional Papers in Social Administration No. 37, G. Bell, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1977), First Report of the Select Committee on Expenditure, Sub-Committee on Social Services and Employment 1976/7: Preventive Medicine, HC 169, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1985), Fourth Report of the Social Services Committee 1984/5: The Misuse of Drugs, HC 208, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1986), 44th Report of the Committee of Public Accounts 1985/6: Preventive Medicine, HC 413, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1987a), Third Report of the Social Services Select Committee 1986/7: Problems with AIDS, HC 182, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1987b), Second Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Agriculture 1986/7: The Effect of Pesticides on Human Health, HC 379, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1987c), Official Report, 121, 5 11, Column 850.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1989a), First Report of the Select Committee on Agriculture 1988/9: Salmonella in Eggs, HC 108, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1989b), Sixth Report of the Social Services Select Committee 1988/9: Listeria, HC 257, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1989c), Seventh Report of the Social Services Select Committee 1988/9: AIDS, HC 202, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1989d), Eighth Report of the Social Services Select Committee 1988/9: Resourcing the NHS—the Government's Plans for the Future of the NHS, HC 214, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1989e), 26th Report of the Public Accounts Committee 1988/9: Coronary Heart Disease, HC 249, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1990), Fifth Report of the Select Committee on Agriculture 1989/90: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, HC 449, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Lords (1985), Thirteenth Report of the European Communities Select Committee 1984/5: Cooperation at Community Level on Health Related Problems, HL 211, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
House of Lords (1989), Official Report, 513, 5 12, Column 745.Google Scholar
Icke, D. (1990), It Doesn't Have to be Lite This: Green Politics Explained, Greenprint, London.Google Scholar
The Independent, (1990a), ‘Clarke calls claims over eyesight tests a total nonsense’, 7 07.Google Scholar
The Independent (1990b), ‘GPs exclude two council estates from practice’, 12 04.Google Scholar
Jowell, R., Witherspoon, S. and Brook, L. (ed.) (1987), British Social Attitudes, Gower, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Klein, R. (1980), Between Nihilism and Utopia in Health Care, Lecture given at Yale University, 09 1980.Google Scholar
Labour Party (1989), Meet the Challenge: Make the Change—A New Agenda for Britain, Labour Party, London.Google Scholar
Lalonde, M. (1974), A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians: A Working Document, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Canada.Google Scholar
Lambert, R. (1963), Sir John Simon, Macgibbon and Kee, London.Google Scholar
Leicestershire Health Authority (1989), Annual Report on the State of Public Health, Leicestershire Health Authority, Leicester.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. (1987), What Price Community Medicine?, Wheatsheaf, Brighton.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. (1952), Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement 1832–54, Longmans, London.Google Scholar
MacDonagh, O. (1977), Early Victorian Government, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London.Google Scholar
McCullough, S. (1989), ‘Useless smear campaign’, The Spectator, 11 02, 20–1.Google Scholar
McKeown, T. (1976), The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage or Nemesis, Nuffield Provincial Hospital Trust, London.Google Scholar
Mason, M. (1990), ‘Screen testing’, The Guardian, 16 01.Google Scholar
Millstone, E. (1986), Food Additives, Penguin, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Moran, G. (1989), ‘Public health at risk’, Health Services Journal, 1 06, 668–9.Google Scholar
Morris, J. (1980), ‘Are health services important to people's health?’, British Medical Journal, 280, 167–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, R.J. (1976), Cholera 1832: A Social Response to an Epidemic, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
National Audit Office (1989), NHS: Coronary Heart Disease, HC 208, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Navarro, V. (1974), Medicine Under Capitalism, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Navarro, V. (1978), The Class Struggle, the State, and Medicine, Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
New Zealand Department of Health (1989), A New Relationship, Department of Health, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Owen, D. (1988), Our NHS, Pan, London.Google Scholar
Patterson, R.G. (1948), ‘The Health of Towns Association in Great Britain 1844–9’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, USA, 22(4).Google Scholar
Porritt, J. and Winner, D. (1989), The Coming of the Greens, Fontana, London.Google Scholar
Powles, J. (1973), ‘On the limitations of modern medicine’, Science, Medicine and Man, 1, 1–30.Google Scholar
Public Health Alliance (1988), Beyond Acheson, Public Health Alliance, Birmingham.Google Scholar
Raeburn, J.M. and Rootman, I. (1988), ‘Towards an expanded health field concept: conceptual and research issues in a new era of health promotion’, Health Promotion, 3: 4, 383–92.Google Scholar
Rhodes, T. and Shaughnessy, R. (1990), ‘Compulsory screening: advertising AIDS in Britain 1986–9’, Policy and Politics, 18: 1, 55–61.Google Scholar
Richardson, J.J. and Jordan, A.G. (1979), Governing Under Pressure, Martin Robertson, London.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts (1844), First Report, House of Commons Sessional Papers 17, HC 572, 1.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the State of Large Towns and Populous Districts (1845), Second Report, House of Commons Sessional Papers 18, HC 602 and 610, 1, 299.Google Scholar
Royal Sanitary Commission (1871), Reports of the Commission on the Operation of the Sanitary Laws, C281.Google Scholar
Simon, J. (1890), English Sanitary Institutions, Cassell, London.Google Scholar
Smith, A. and Jacobson, B. (1988), The Nation's Health: A Strategy for the 1990s, King Edward's Hospital Fund, London.Google Scholar
Smith, F.B. (1979), The People's Health, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Smith, P. (1967), Disraelian Conservatism and Social Reform, Routledge Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Stone, D. (1989), ‘Upside down prevention’, Health Service Journal, 20 07, 890–1.Google Scholar
Street, J. (1988), ‘British government policy on AIDS: learning not to die of ignorance’, Parliamentary Affairs, 41:4, 490–507.Google Scholar
Sunday Times (1989), ‘Thatcher halts survey on sex’, 17 09.Google Scholar
Taylor, P. (1984), Smoke Ring, Bodley Head, London.Google Scholar
Webster, C. (1990), The Victorian Public Health Legacy: A Challenge to the Future, Public Health Alliance/Institution of Environmental Health Officers, London.Google Scholar
Whitehead, M. (1988), The Health Divide, Health Education Council, London.Google Scholar
Whitehead, M. (1989a), ‘Time for a new agenda’, Health Service Journal, 5 10, 1220–1.Google Scholar
Whitehead, M. (1989b), Swimming Upstream: Trends and Prospects in Health Education, Research Report Number 5, King's Fund, London.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. (1983), The Lead Scandal, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Wohl, A.S. (1984), Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain, Methuen, London.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1981), Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000, WHO, Geneva.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1985), Targets for Health for All: Targets in Support of the European Regional Strategy for Health for All, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (1986), Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion: An International Conference on Health Promotion, WHO, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Yarrow, A. (1986), Politics, Society and Preventive Medicine, Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Occasional Paper 6, London.Google Scholar