Rethinking public health: promoting public engagement through a new discursive environment.
I reexamine the notion of public health after reviewing critiques of the prevalent individualistic conception of health. I argue that public health should mean not only the health of the public but also health in the public and by the public, and I expound on the social contingency of health and highlight the importance of the interpersonal dimensions of health conditions and health promotion efforts. Promoting public health requires activating health-enhancing communicative behaviors (such as interpersonal advocacy and mutual responsibility taking) in addition to individual behavioral change. To facilitate such communicative behaviors, it is imperative to first construct a new discursive environment in which to think and talk about health in a language of interdependence and collective efforts.
Ye Sun is with the Department of Communication, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
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D003254:Consumer Advocacy; D006266:Health Education; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D011635:Public Health Administration; D012924:Social Conditions; D011049:Social Control Policies; D012935:Social Justice; D040241:Social Marketing; D012941:Social Responsibility