Abstract
Public health is a scientific and practical endeavor. It aims at preventing disease and promoting health in a population. Public health has a specific way to use the concept of health. It is positive in the sense that it facilitates the measurement of the health status of a population over and above the absence of disease. Health in public health is a gradual, not an absolute, notion. Public health also targets health risks or health dispositions, which should not be confused with intrinsic health statuses. This chapter also discusses the aspect of referring to health within a population, which poses some issues of measurement. Finally, it is discussed what normative issues are due to the specific understanding of health in public health.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arah OA (2009) On the relationship between individual and population health. Med Health Care Philos 12:235–244
Beauchamp DE (1995) Public health: philosophy. In: Post SG (ed) Encyclopedia of bioethics, 3rd edn. MacMillan Reference, New York, pp 2210–2215
Boorse C (1977) Health as a theoretical concept. Philos Sci 44(4):542–573
Broadbent A (2013) Philosophy of epidemiology. Macmillan Publishers, Houndmills
Callahan D (1973) The WHO definition of ‘health’. Hast Cent Stud 1(3):77–87
Coggon J (2012) What makes health public? A critical evaluation of moral, legal, and political claims in public health. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Daniels N, Kennedy B, Kawachi I (2001) Is inequality bad for our health? Beacon, Boston
Hausman D (2012) Measuring or valuing population health: some conceptual problems. Public Health Ethics 5(3):229–239
Holland S (2014) Public health ethics, 2nd edn. Polity Press, Cambridge
John S (2009) Why ‘health’ is not a central category for public health policy. J Appl Philos 26(2):129–143
Kahneman D (1999) Objective happiness. In: Kahneman D, Diener E, Schwarz N (eds) Well-being: the foundations of hedonic psychology. Russell Sage, New York, pp 3–25
Murray CJL, Salomon JA, Mathers CD, Lopez AD (eds) (2002) Summary measures of population health: concepts, ethics, measurement and applications. WHO, Geneva
Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2007) Public health: ethical issues. Cambridge Publishers, Cambridge
Parmet WE (2009) Populations, public health, and the law. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC
Rose G (1985) Sick individuals and sick populations. Int J Epidemiol 14(1):32–38
Sen A (2004) Health achievement and equity: external and internal perspectives. In: Anand S, Peter F, Sen A (eds) Public health, ethics, and equity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 263–268
Venkatapuram S (2011) Health justice: an argument from the capabilities approach. Polity Press, Cambridge
Weinstock D (2011) How should political philosophers think of health? J Med Philos 36:424–435
World Health Organisation (1986) The Ottawa charter for health promotion http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/129532/Ottawa_Charter.pdf?ua=1
World Health Organisation (2010) Adelaide statement on health in all policies http://www.who.int/social_determinants/hiap_statement_who_sa_final.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Schramme, T. (2017). Health as Notion in Public Health. In: Schramme, T., Edwards, S. (eds) Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_49
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_49
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8687-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8688-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities