Conceptualising Public Health

This book discusses how understandings of public health have developed in their political and social context over the twentieth century, identifying ruptures and redefinitions in its conceptualisation. It analyses the dynamic rhetorical play through which key concepts have been used as political tools, on the one hand, and shaped the operating environment of public health, on the other. Providing examples from Northern Europe situated in an international context, the authors collected here each examine a particular way of understanding public health and assess how key actors or phenomena have challenged, altered or confirmed past and present meanings of the concept.