Public Health: A Very Short Introduction

I was hoping for a more broad introduction to public health but this focuses pretty heavily on the UK. It sprinkles in references to other countries, but it should have been called Public Health in the UK

Virginia Berridge is a Professor at the London School of Tropical Medicine, now with an expanded name that includes “Hygiene.” As such, this work is heavily weighted towards the ways in which Public Health is practiced in the United Kingdom, with suitable nods to various Commonwealth countries. The first chapter asks the question: “What is Public Health?” The answer is the subject line. The concept of health, individual, and of the community as a whole, continues to shift and evolve. At one time the focus was on contagious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. Now the focus is more on “lifestyle” diseases, such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases. She does not mention that considerable effort has been expended in the United States to make gun control a public health issue. She does mention however, that the United States is unique in how many public health issues are addressed, and resolved or not, in the courtroom. This work was written in 2016 and is now terribly dated. But aren’t most things, post-COVID? To her credit, she does state that the next public health crisis might be totally unanticipated now. Yup! Consider the following, which were the top twelve concerns of the UK Faculty of Public Health in 2014: minimum unit pricing for alcohol; standard tobacco packaging; reduction of personal transport use; the living wage; physical activity targets; 20% duty on alcoholic beverages; reformulation of food products to cut sugar; a 20 mph speed limit in built up areas, and a few others of that genre. “Antimicrobial resistance” is only an honorable mention, beyond the top twelve. And there is NO mention of a global pandemic, despite previous experiences and various “prophets in the wilderness,” like David Quammen and Bill Gates. Starting with chapter 3, she goes back over the development of public health concepts from the 1700’s, as the chapter title indicates, but actually all the way back to the Roman Empire, even briefly touching on the Black Death in the 14th century. There is a chapter on the 19th century, and one on the 20th, with the focus on the above-mentioned “lifestyle” diseases. Another chapter goes international and looks at tropical diseases. For sure, pandemics are mentioned, but are not detailed. Thus, a couple of sentences on the 1918-19 influenza pandemic; likewise HIV/AIDS, as well as possible epidemics, from Ebola and SARS. But that is about all. Vaccines, now most topical, are also mentioned, as is the resistance of segments of the population to accepting them. She also discussed the “nanny state” issue. Just how involved should the state be in ensuring that a person is healthy? Should the state be involved in trying to reduce cigarette and alcohol consumption? And how many push-ups a day are required, drill sergeant? Overall, think the work is marred due to Berridge’s academic perspective. Thus, there is almost no descriptions of actual public health campaigns about changing people’s attitudes and behavior, but rather much ink is spilt naming the various organizational entities involved in public health (all potential purchasers, no doubt). Sometimes eye-glazingly so. “Academic turgid” as a prose style label. And I sensed a “cut and paste” aspect to her work, taking some chapters previously written, without realizing that she made the same point in one chapter and then in the next. Overall, rather disappointing for this normally excellent series. Still, I found it a valuable read, particularly since it provided details of public health efforts outside the United States, where we still remain in deep doo-doo. Why oh, why? 3-stars for Berridge’s effort, who is a coeval.

This is not one of the better entries in the OUP Very Short Introductions series. The actual prose is clunky, tedious, and often vague, and key concepts are frequently left unclear. The level of detail is usually superficial at best. To be honest, even after finishing the book I'm not sure I can even explain what public health *is*. As other reviewers have noted, the book focuses on the example of the UK, and tends to relegate discussion of other countries to brief mentions at the end of sections. I'm somewhat surprised that OUP would publish this volume, given how unfavorably it compares to their Very Short Introductions to epidemiology, pandemics, and infectious disease, to name just a few examples.

Great if you need a quick reference

The book was mostly focused on public health in England. The author could have provided more examples especially response to global epidemics and public health campaigns such as anti-polio campaign in India. However, overall, irmt gives a nice explanation of public health.

Não está claramente especificado na página da apresentação do livro que o e-book não é compatível com o e-reader de sétima geração do e-reader Kindle. O e-book só pode ser lido pelo aplicativo executado no sistema operacional Windows. O livro é do meu interesse, apesar de não ter a facilidade de leitura no e-reader, A minha sugestão é que isto fique muito claro na página do livro.

A dreadfully dry treatment of a fascinating topic. This history of public health touches on familiar themes of racism, sexism, social inequality, politics and medical pragmatism - but it’s an absolute slog to get through.

Badly written but contains some worthwhile information. It isn't very academic and it isn't very simple either so I am unsure about who this is written for.