Thinking historically about public health

Alison Bashford*, Carolyn Strange

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    16 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This paper argues that analysing past public health policies calls for scholarship that integrates insights not just from medical history but from a broad range of historical fields. Recent studies of historic infectious disease management make this evident: they confirm that prior practices inhere in current perceptions and policies, which, like their antecedents, unfold amidst shifting amalgams of politics, culture, law and economics. Thus, explaining public health policy of the past purely in medical or epidemiological terms ignores evidence that it was rarely, if ever, designed solely on medical grounds at the time.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)87-92
    Number of pages6
    JournalMedical Humanities
    Volume33
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2007

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