Binge drinking, particularly in young women, has become big news. Debates about the regulation and classification of cannabis are frequently voiced. Cigarette smoking is banned in public places, and emotive public health campaigns seek to reduce its use still further. Yet there are many sides to each of these arguments, and if we look back over the last 150 years, we see massive variety in the ways societies and states have related to drugs, drink, and tobacco. Virginia Berridge offers a much-needed long view, which helps illuminate our current concerns, and shows how three separate stories overlap and inter-connect. She takes us to the socially-acceptable opium dens of Dickens's London; to the absinthe craze of fin-de-siecle Paris. She asks whether prohibition in America proved to be helpful or harmful. She looks at how tobacco was promoted as a medicinal benefit. She considers the medical use of cannabis, LSD, and other drugs. And through all this, she traces the changes in scientific and medical knowledge. This is a complex story of whether, and how, the state should intervene. How do we balance the interests of personal freedom, public well-being, healthcare, and the economy? Is substance abuse a social issue, or a medical one? As governments, health services, and the World Health Organisation grapple with these issues, the wisdom and experience of history can help map the way forward.
Public health is a term much used in the media, by health professionals, and by activists. At the national or the local level there are ministries or departments of public health, whilst international agencies such as the World Health Organisation promote public health policies, and regional organisations such as the European Union have public health funding and policies. But what do we mean when we speak about 'public health'? In this Very Short Introduction Virginia Berridge explores the areas which fall under the remit of public health, and explains how the individual histories of different countries have come to cause great differences in the perception of the role and responsibilities of public health organisations. Thus, in the United States litigation on public health issues is common, but state involvement is less, while some Scandinavian countries have a tradition of state involvement or even state ownership of industries such as alcohol in connection with public health. In its narrowest sense, public health can refer to the health of a population, the longevity of individual members, and their freedom from disease, but it can also be anticipatory, geared to the prevention of illness, rather than simply the provision of care and treatment. In the way public health deals with healthy as well as sick people it is therefore a separate concept from health services, which deal with the sick population. Drawing on a wide range of international examples, Berridge demonstrates the central role of history to understanding the amorphous nature of public health today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
The book offers a unique combination of up-to-date, wide ranging history of medicine content with hands on experience of assessing and using archival material to understand health.
Fifteen years ago the AIDS epidemic did not exist on the public agenda. In just over a decade the public and official response to the disease has resulted in the development of a whole network of organizations devoted to the study, containment, and practical treatment of AIDS. In this fascinating and scholarly account, Virginia Berridge analyses a remarkable period in contemporary British history, and exposes the reaction of the British public and British political and medical elites to one of the most challenging issues of this century.
British health policy has undergone enormous change in the post-war era. The NHS established in the post-war period has been constantly reorganised, and the role of doctors and associated medical professions has radically changed. This book considers the changes in health policy and in the service provided by the NHS, and examines in detail the 'mixed economy' of health care and the role of different providers of health care, as well as their relationships both with recipients of care and the state. In doing so, Professor Berridge sheds light on the increasingly important part that lay people, especially women, have played in the provision of health care and looks at community care and the shifting balance of power within the medical profession. The book provides a guide to changes in health and health policy during and since World War II, giving an authoritative analysis of the most recent research.
At the beginning of the 19th century, opium was widely used as an everyday remedy for common ailments. By the 1920s, it was classified as a dangerous drug. In an examination of the social context of drug taking in Victorian England, the book explains this decisive change in attitude. This revised edition examines how and why restrictive policies were put in place in the early decades of the 20th century and reveals fresh perspectives on the motivations which survive in the formation of current drug policies.
Given the current concerns about binge drinking, the national alcohol strategy, and the new Licensing Act, alcohol issues are high on the policy and public agendas. However, the history in this debate is relatively under-exploited and the historical role of temperance rarely drawn upon. This timely report looks back at the role of temperance and considers how the lessons learned and the principles of the Temperance Movement can be applied to alcohol use in today's society. It draws on existing literature about temperance and reviews how the models it offered can be brought into present day thinking and debate. The report also examines whether abstinence changes personal behaviour, and and how it corresponds with structural factors, such as licensing and taxation, as well as environmental improvement. Whilst the nineteenth century mass movement of temperance cannot be recreated in the same way today as it was in Victorian Britain, the author argues that it does present models for current strategies and can lead to discussion of how to achieve cultural change in mass society. Temperance outlines how the legacy of temperance has been expressed in recent decades and how this may be built upon today, raising issues for current policy making.
Binge drinking, particularly in young women, has become big news. Debates about the regulation and classification of cannabis are frequently voiced. Cigarette smoking is banned in public places, and emotive public health campaigns seek to reduce its use still further. Yet there are many sides to each of these arguments, and if we look back over the last 150 years, we see massive variety in the ways societies and states have related to drugs, drink, and tobacco. Virginia Berridge offers a much-needed long view, which helps illuminate our current concerns, and shows how three separate stories overlap and inter-connect. She takes us to the socially-acceptable opium dens of Dickens's London; to the absinthe craze of fin-de-siecle Paris. She asks whether prohibition in America proved to be helpful or harmful. She looks at how tobacco was promoted as a medicinal benefit. She considers the medical use of cannabis, LSD, and other drugs. And through all this, she traces the changes in scientific and medical knowledge. This is a complex story of whether, and how, the state should intervene. How do we balance the interests of personal freedom, public well-being, healthcare, and the economy? Is substance abuse a social issue, or a medical one? As governments, health services, and the World Health Organisation grapple with these issues, the wisdom and experience of history can help map the way forward.
The post war history of public health and the role of smoking within that history epitomises the tensions which surround taking health to the public. Public health history has largely concentrated on the nineteenth century sanitary period or on the years before the Second World War, often focussing on the environmental advances, or on the professional and occupational history of public health as an activity. This book has a different focus: it deals with the change in the outlook of public health post war. From a focus on services, vaccination, and dealing with health issues at the local level, public health had developed new discourse. Centring on chronic disease, it became concerned with the concept of 'risk' and targeted individual behaviour. The mass media and centralised campaigning directed at the whole population replaced local campaigns, and politicians changed their mind about speaking directly to the public on health matters. Their early worries about the 'nanny state' gave place to a desire to inculcate new norms of behaviour, and it was debated how change was to be achieved. Identifying debates between those believing in 'systematic gradualism' and those who advocated a more coercive approach, Virginia Berridge uses smoking as a model. Such debates brought into play tensions over the relationships between public health and industrial interests. Health campaigning by new style pressure groups like ASH, which were part state funded, was an important motive force behind the change. In the 1980s and 1990s, public health changed again. Passive smoking and HIV/AIDS brought environmental concerns back into public health, which had disappeared after the 1950s. The 'rise of addiction' for smoking demonstrated the power of pharmaceutical interests to define a new 'pharmaceutical public health' in which treatment and 'magic bullets' were also tactics for prevention. In the early 21st century, public health was play to complex tensions and conflicting impetuses. This book shows that those tensions were nothing new and outlines their development over the last half century.
This fascinating book offers a wide ranging exploration of the history of public health and the development of health services over the past two centuries. The book surveys the rise and redefinition of public health since the sanitary revolution of the mid-nineteenth century, assessing the reforms in the post World War II years and the coming of welfare states. Importantly, the book also includes: A comparative examination of why healthcare has taken such different trajectories in different countries Case studies on malaria, sexual health, alcohol and substance abuse Exercises enabling readers to easily interact with and critically assess historical source material Visual materials and illustrations ranging from a fifteenth century syphilis sufferer to the 1980s HIV/AIDS mass media campaigns Written by a team of historians from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, this is the definitive guide for teaching the history of public health and health services. Public Health in History will engage health students, practitioners, policy makers and anyone who would like know more about these crucial areas of public health in countries across the global north and global south. Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood. Contributors Maureen Malowany, John Manton and Suzanne Taylor.
This book would be an excellent choice for anyone wishing to be introduced to the field of health economics – it is undoubtedly the best 'Health Economics 101' textbook around." Professor Di McIntyre, South African Research Chair of Health and Wealth, Health Economics Unit, University of Cape Town "There are several books on the market now that claim to take readers into the intricacies of health economics 'from first principles'. To me, this book succeeds better than any." Gavin Mooney, Honorary Professor, University of Sydney and University of Cape Town; Visiting Professor, Aarhus University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Southern Denmark This practical text offers the ideal introduction to the economic techniques used in public health and is accessible enough for those who have no or limited knowledge of economics. Written in a user-friendly manner, the book covers key economic principles, such as supply and demand, healthcare markets, healthcare finance and economic evaluation. The book has been thoroughly updated with new material reflecting important recent developments and policy shifts such as the rise of performance based funding in health care, the impact and cost of achieving universal health care and the growing effect of globalization and international trade on the health sector.This engaging new edition features: Extensive use of global examples from low, middle and high income countries, real case studies and exercises to facilitate the understanding of economic concepts A greater emphasis on the practical application of economic theories and concepts to the formulation of health policy New chapters on macroeconomics, globalization and health and provider payments Extensively revised chapters on demand and supply, markets and economic evaluation Introduction to Health Economics 2nd edition is the ideal companion text for students, public health practitioners, policy makers, managers and researchers looking for a greater understanding of health economics principles. Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.
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