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Is There a Public Health Function?

Is There a Public Health Function? Abel Wolman The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 The world is full of science and technology assessments, performed to prove that what we do has social significance. In recent decades the pressure to pursue this intellectual exercise has had a more important purpose. People must be convinced that what we do will not harm them. Perhaps of greater relevance, people must be made aware of what we are not, but should be, doing. The subject has the tacit blessing of a distinguished public health prac­ titioner. In February Public Health Association, asked not too innocently 1984, Susan S. Addiss, then President of the American (1): Has anyone noticed what has happened to the meaning of the word "health"lately? How well I remember my days at public health school, absorbing repeated strictures on the differences between "public health" and "medical care" .... We were admonished never to forget that difference, lest we be co-opted by "sickness concerns" .... Perhaps it is time for us to return to the strictures of our days in schools of public health, to be careful to say "hospital costs" when we mean "hospital costs,""medical care" when we mean "medical care," and reserve the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Public Health Annual Reviews

Is There a Public Health Function?

Wolman, A
Annual Review of Public Health , Volume 7 (1) – May 1, 1986
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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright 1986 Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Subject
Review Articles
ISSN
0163-7525
eISSN
1545-2093
DOI
10.1146/annurev.pu.07.050186.000245
pmid
3718650
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abel Wolman The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218 The world is full of science and technology assessments, performed to prove that what we do has social significance. In recent decades the pressure to pursue this intellectual exercise has had a more important purpose. People must be convinced that what we do will not harm them. Perhaps of greater relevance, people must be made aware of what we are not, but should be, doing. The subject has the tacit blessing of a distinguished public health prac­ titioner. In February Public Health Association, asked not too innocently 1984, Susan S. Addiss, then President of the American (1): Has anyone noticed what has happened to the meaning of the word "health"lately? How well I remember my days at public health school, absorbing repeated strictures on the differences between "public health" and "medical care" .... We were admonished never to forget that difference, lest we be co-opted by "sickness concerns" .... Perhaps it is time for us to return to the strictures of our days in schools of public health, to be careful to say "hospital costs" when we mean "hospital costs,""medical care" when we mean "medical care," and reserve the

Journal

Annual Review of Public Health – Annual Reviews

Published: May 1, 1986

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