Healthy publics: enabling cultures and environments for health

Stephen Hinchliffe (), Mark A. Jackson, Katrina Wyatt, Anne E. Barlow, Manuela Barreto, Linda Clare, Michael H. Depledge, Robin Durie, Lora E. Fleming, Nick Groom, Karyn Morrissey, Laura Salisbury and Felicity Thomas
Additional contact information
Stephen Hinchliffe: University of Exeter
Mark A. Jackson: University of Exeter
Katrina Wyatt: University of Exeter Medical School
Anne E. Barlow: University of Exeter Law School
Manuela Barreto: University of Exeter
Linda Clare: University of Exeter
Michael H. Depledge: University of Exeter Medical School
Robin Durie: University of Exeter
Lora E. Fleming: University of Exeter Medical School
Nick Groom: University of Exeter
Karyn Morrissey: University of Exeter Medical School
Laura Salisbury: University of Exeter
Felicity Thomas: University of Exeter Medical School

Palgrave Communications, 2018, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Despite extraordinary advances in biomedicine and associated gains in human health and well-being, a growing number of health and well-being related challenges have remained or emerged in recent years. These challenges are often ‘more than biomedical’ in complexion, being social, cultural and environmental in terms of their key drivers and determinants, and underline the necessity of a concerted policy focus on generating healthy societies. Despite the apparent agreement on this diagnosis, the means to produce change are seldom clear, even when the turn to health and well-being requires sizable shifts in our understandings of public health and research practices. This paper sets out a platform from which research approaches, methods and translational pathways for enabling health and well-being can be built. The term ‘healthy publics’ allows us to shift the focus of public health away from ‘the public’ or individuals as targets for intervention, and away from the view that culture acts as a barrier to efficient biomedical intervention, towards a greater recognition of the public struggles that are involved in raising health issues, questioning what counts as healthy and unhealthy and assembling the evidence and experience to change practices and outcomes. Creating the conditions for health and well-being, we argue, requires an engaged research process in which public experiments in building and repairing social and material relations are staged and sustained even if, and especially when, the fates of those publics remain fragile and buffeted by competing and often more powerful public formations.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-018-0113-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0113-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0113-9

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().