Changing Publicness

Abstract

In this chapter, we reflect not only on the challenges to publicness in public health but also its persistence. The increasing focus on individual behaviour as both a cause of disease and its remedy, posed a danger to collective understandings of the public and its health. Emphasising personal responsibility for health shifted liability from the state to the citizen, from public to private. At the same time, we point to ways in which publicness was retained, remade and even reinforced. 'The public' was increasingly recognised as an important actor in public health policy, practice and research. In the final section of the chapter, we consider developments beyond the dichotomy of 'public' and 'private' that were nonetheless crucial to changing conceptions of the public and public health. Keywords Choice • Risk • Private • Public • Social structure • Environment By now it should be abundantly clear that neither 'the public' nor 'public health' ever had a fixed or entirely coherent set of meanings. Yet, in the postwar period, the 'publicness' of public health seemed to undergo a radical shift. In this chapter, we reflect on both the challenges to publicness in public health but also its persistence. In the first section of the chapter, we concentrate on the increasing focus on individual behaviour as both a