Public Health: Social Context and Action: Social Context and Action - Softcover

"From Sure Start to healthy workplaces, health action zones to community regeneration, this volume makes the leap from research to action."
Professor Richard Parish, Chief Executive, The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health

• What is public health and how has it changed over time?
• What is the social context of public health and what are the dominant 21st centuryissues?
• What strategies are in place to address population health?

This important book makes a significant contribution to the emergent body of public health knowledge by examining debates around the social context of health, including key socio-economic, environmental and cultural factors. In doing so, the text locates within a social context the theoretical debates and problems surrounding public health, and analyzes the practical public health strategies and solutions that have been developed to address them.

The book moves beyond traditional theoretical discourse to include coverage of:

• The thinking, frameworks and processes that are actively shaping public health in the 21st century
• Provides tangible examples of public health strategies that have recently been introduced to tackle the social determinants of health
• The use of media strategies to promote health

Public Health is key reading for students undertaking courses in health studies, health promotion, nursing, public health, social policy, social work and sociology. In addition to a wide student readership, the book’s focus on public health action and current practice also makes it highly relevant to professionals.

The text brings together a distinguished group of practitioners, social scientists and public health experts who contribute their ideas and research.

Contributors: Amanda Amos, Mel Bartley, Linda Bauld, Hannah Bradby, Tarani Chandola, Jeff Collin, Paul Fleming, Colin Fudge, Sebastian Garman, Ben Gidley, Jenny Head, David Hunter, Martin King, Roderick Lawrence, Kelley Lee, Yaojun Li, Mhairi Mackenzie, Alex Marsh, Antony Morgan, Jennie Popay, Graham Scambler, Sasha Scambler, Angela Scriven, Nick Watson.

Angela Scriven is the Course Leader for the MSc in Health Promotion and Public Health. She has been teaching and researching in the field of health promotion for over 20 year and has published widely. Her research is centred on the relationship between health promotion policy and practice within specific contexts. Her extensive national and international collaborations relate to research, consultancy, editorial activity, subject development and external examining. She is a member of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Health. Key publications include Health Promotion Practice: the Contribution of Nurses and Allied Health Professionals (2005, Palgrave), Scriven A and Garman, S (eds) Promoting Health: Global Perspectives (Palgrave, 2005) and Scriven, A. and Orme, J. (eds) Health Promotion: Professional Perspectives, (2nd edition) (2001, Palgrave in association with the Open University). Sebastian Garman is Senior Tutor in the School of Health Sciences and Social Care and leader for the module on Global Perspectives in Public Health and Health Promotion for the MSc in Health Promotion and Public Health at Brunel University. He is a sociologist with interests in public health, globalisation, collective memory and ethnicity. His research is focused on the implications for health promotion and public health of globalisation. Key publications include: Garman, S The Social Context of Health Promotion in a Globalising World. In Scriven A and Garman, S (eds) Promoting Health: Global Perspectives. (Palgrave, 2005) and Scriven A and Garman, S (eds) Promoting Health: Global Perspectives. Basingstoke: (Palgrave, 2005). Amanda Amos is Professor of Health Promotion in the Division of Community Health Sciences at Edinburgh University. She has been teaching and researching health promotion for over 20 years. Her research has focussed on a range of smoking issues from the individual to community and societal levels. She is a member of the Boards of ASH Scotland, the European Network for Smoking Prevention and the International Network of Women Against Tobacco (Europe); a senior editor of the international journal Tobacco Control; and Chair of the researchers' group of the Scottish Tobacco Control Alliance. Mel Bartley is Professor of Medical Sociology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, UK. Her main areas of research are ones which cross the boundaries between sociology and epidemiology: including gender differences in health, health inequalities, the relationship between health, work and unemployment, and resilience in the life-course. Mel also has an interest in the history of occupational health and the relationship between research and policy. She has published widely in these areas, and also written two books Authorities and Partisans: the debate on unemployment and health (Edinburgh University press 1982) and Health Inequality: an introduction to concepts, theories and methods (Polity Press 2003), and co-edited the Sociology and Health and Illness monograph The Sociology of Health Inequalities (Blackwells 1998) Linda Bauld is a Reader in Social Policy at the University of Bath. She is an applied policy researcher with a particular interest in public health policy. Most of her recent work has involved the evaluation of complex community-based interventions to improve health. Along with the evaluation of several national programmes including Health Action Zones in England, she has been involved with a number of studies examining the efficacy of public health interventions, most notably smoking cessation services in Scotland and England. She has published several books and articles in a range of peer reviewed journals. Hannah Bradby is co-director of the Institute of Health (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/healthatwarwick/) at the University of Warwick where she teaches in the Medical School and the Department of Sociology. Her publications in the field of ethnicity and health include a paper, "Watch out for the Aunties.' Young British Asians' accounts of identity and substance use', forthcoming in the journal 'Sociology of Health and Illness' and a fictionalised account of her ethnographic research 'Skinfull' published by Onlywomen press (http://www.onlywomenpress.com/). Tarani Chandola is a senior lecturer in medical sociology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College, London. He works on the Whitehall II study and other longitudinal datasets. He obtained a DPhil. in Sociology from Nuffield College, University of Oxford in 1998. His work includes research on the measurement of social position in relation to health, explaining social, ethnic and geographical variations in health and analysing the role of psychosocial factors in explaining social inequalities in health. Dr Chandola is one of the course organisers on the UCL MSc Health and Society: Social Epidemiology course. Jeff Collin is a Lecturer in the Centre for International Public Health Policy, University of Edinburgh. A political scientist by background, he was previously based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and his research currently focuses on globalisation and tobacco control. Using corporate documents disclosed following litigation, this work analyses attempts by transnational tobacco companies to influence public policy, particularly in developing countries. Additional research interests include developments in global health governance and the health impacts of population mobility and of trade liberalisation. Paul Fleming is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences at the University of Ulster where he established and has taught on the MSc in Health Promotion since 1992. A Health Promotion Specialist and Post-Primary School Teacher by background, he has held a variety posts in health promotion and teaching over the last 30 years. His current research interests include health promoting settings, particularly the workplace and also sexual health. He co-authored a book: Impacting Health at Work, has published extensively in peer reviewed journals and is Editor of the Journal of Environmental Health Research. Colin Fudge is Professor of Urban Environment and Pro Vice-Chancellor at UWE, Bristol, UK. He has held senior positions in government and academia in the UK, Sweden, Australia and the EU, was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects for his work on urban sustainability, and the title of Royal Professor by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is Chair of the EU Expert Group on the Urban Environment, Founding Director of the WHO Collaborative Research Centre on Healthy Cities and Urban Policy, Visiting Professor, Italy and Sweden and a Board Member, Chalmers University. He has written more than 80 articles and reports, 10 books, numerous book chapters and presented more than 100 conference papers. Ben Gidley is a research fellow at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, which is attached to the Sociology department at Goldsmiths College, London. He has worked on a variety of research projects, mainly in London, around issues of youth, ethnicity, migration, social exclusion and community development. In particular, he has led a number of evaluations of local social policy interventions, such as Sure Start and Single Regeneration Budget programmes and Neighbourhood Renewal projects. Jenny Head is Senior Lecturer in Statistics in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, UK. Having previously worked on large scale studies such as the National Child Development Study she coordinates the Medical and Social Statistics group, a network of statisticians working in the department. She is a member of the Whitehall II study management team and also a coinvestigator on a component project of the ESRC priority network on Capability and Resilience. She is principal investigator on a project investigating the health impacts of work-related stress funded by the Health and Safety Executive. David Hunter is Professor of Health Policy and Management at Durham University, UK. He is Director of the Centre for Public Policy and Health in the School for Health located at the Wolfson Research Institute. A political scientist by background, he has researched and published widely in the field of health policy and management for nearly 30 years. Among his books are: Desperately Seeking Solutions: Rationing Health Care (1997) and Public Health Policy (2003). He is co-editor with Sian Griffiths of New Perspectives in Public Health (second edition, 2006). He is Chair of the UK Public Health Association and a member of NICE's R&D Scientific Advisory Group. Martin King is a Principal Lecturer in the Division of Psychology and Social Change at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He has worked in the field of health promotion and public health in both the NHS and local authority settings. He is co-editor of Representing Health: Discourses of Health and Illness in the Media (2005). He is currently completing his PhD on Representations of Masculinity in the Mass Media 1960 -- 1970 and is a regular columnist for the Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. Roderick Lawrence is Professor at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Geneva. He has served as a Consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the World Health Organization (WHO). From 1998-2003 he was Chairperson of the Evaluation Advisory Committee of the WHO-EURO Healthy Cities project. Kelley Lee is Reader in Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has chaired the WHO Scientific Resource Group on Globalization, Trade and H ealth. Her research focuses on the global dimensions of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and the implications arising for global governance. Current projects include analysis of tobacco industry documents, and the links between health, foreign policy and security. Her books include Health impacts of globalization (2003), Globalization and Health, An introduction (2003) and Global Change and Health (2005). Yaojun Li is a Reader in Sociological Analysis at Birmingham University, UK. His research interests are in social mobility and social stratification, social capital, political preferences, occupational and educational attainment, and religious identity. He has published widely in these areas. His papers have appeared in many leading Sociology journals such as European Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Work, Employment and Society, Sociological Review, Explorations in Sociology, Sociological Research, Sociological Research Online and Ageing and Society. He has also conducted numerous projects for the ESRC and other government bodies such as the DTI and the National Assembly of Wales. Mhairi Mackenzie is a Senior Lecturer in Health Policy in the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. She has been involved in the evaluation of a range of public health policy initiatives including Health Action Zones (where she managed the evaluation module focusing on whole systems change) and the National Health Demonstration Projects in Scotland. She has a particular interest in the evaluation of complex policy initiatives and the role of evidence in policy-making. Alex Marsh is Reader in Public Policy at the University of Bristol. His research has engaged with many aspects of the relationship between housing, the economy and society. Work on housing, health and care includes a study of the impact of housing on health using the National Child Development Study, an evaluation of innovative initiatives crossing the housing and care divide, and a review of the Disabled Facilities Grant. He has published widely, including co-editing Housing and Public Policy (Open, 1998), Homelessness (The Policy Press, 1999), and Two steps forward: housing policy into the new Millennium (The Policy Press, 2001). He is currently a Visiting Academic Consultant to the Law Commission, working on the reform of the structures to regulate private rented housing. Antony Morgan is an Associate Director in the Centre for Public Health Excellence at the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. His research interests include methodological issues relating to evidence base public health, promoting an assets based approach to young people's health and development and social approaches to tackling health inequalities. Jennie Popay is Professor of Sociology and Public Health, Institute for Health Research at Lancaster University. Her research interests include social and gender inequalities in health, the sociology of knowledge, the evaluation of complex social interventions and evidence synthesis. She is a co-convenor of the Qualitative Research Methods Group within the Cochrane Collaboration. Graham Scambler is Professor of Medical Sociology at UCL. His interests range from issues of health and illness to social theory and the sociology of sport. He was Visiting Professor of Sociology at Emory University, Atlanta, USA, in 1998. He is founding co-editor of the international journal Social Theory and Health, which first appeared in 2003. His research areas include: chronic illness and stigma, health inequalities and health issues in the sex industry. Recent books include: Habermas, Critical Theory and Health (Routledge, 2001); Health and Social Change: A Critical Theory (Open University Press, 2002); Sociology as Applied to Medicine (5th.Ed) (Saunders, 2003); Sport and Society: History, Power and Culture (Open University Press, 2005); and Medical Sociology (4 Vols) (Routledge, 2005). Sasha Scambler is Lecturer is Sociology as Applied to Dentistry at Kings College London. Her interests range from ageing and social participation in later life to chronic illness, disability and social theory. Research areas include: children with profound multiple disability; barriers to oral health care for older people and loneliness in later life. She has co-authored two chapters and has published in a number of peer reviewed journals. Nick Watson is Professor of Disability Studies and Director of Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research at the University of Glasgow. He has written widely on a range of disability issues including disabled children, disability and identity, theorising disability and the role of impairment, care and personal support and disability and politics. He has co-edited a number of collections including Disability and Culture (2003 Pearson) and Reframing the Body (2001 Palgrave).