Placing the Public in Public Health in Post-War Britain, 1948–2012

Abstract

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Just say know: Drug education and its publics in 1980s Britain

“…Although the ‘Choose Life Not Drugs’ campaign was more positive in tone, and somewhat more in line with the views of health educators at the time, the ambivalent reaction of some audiences pointed to a wider disconnect between the message and those supposed to be receiving it. Indeed, the re-appropriation of imagery and text from both campaigns and its re-purposing in a variety of ways denotes a dynamic relationship between public health messages and their ‘publics’ ( Mold, Clark, Millward & Payling, 2019 ). Such publics were not merely passive recipients.…”

Historicising “containment and delay”: COVID-19, the NHS and high-risk patients

“…This has not only been seen in the way that “protecting” the Service and “saving lives” literally follow on from “staying home” in the grammatical construction of the soundbite; NHS workers themselves have posted signs on social media attesting that ‘we stay here for you – please stay home for us’. Such appeals construct the service as a subject that waits for citizens in their time of need (though cf: Davies, 2020 , Waiting in Pandemic Times ), and uses this temporal dedication as a way to suggest that the social rights of citizenship come with expectations of performing health-protective behaviours ( Berridge, 2007 ; Mold et al , 2019 ; Reubi & Mold, 2013 ). Appreciation for the risk health workers experience in waiting for, and with, our infected selves has been manifest in overt displays of ‘clapping for carers’.…”

Superman vs. Nick O’Teen: anti-smoking campaigns and children in 1980s Britain

“…This was related to the experience of friends and family, as well as images on TV and in magazines (Davison, 1989; Davison et al, 1991; Frankel et al, 1991). The public’s understanding of public and individual health was complex, multifaceted and rooted in a wider cultural and social context (Mold et al, 2019). Indeed, narrow debates about ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in terms of reducing smoking rates or preventing lung cancer miss the real message of health education: the ways in which it constructed its publics and they constructed it.…”

“…Publics were also able to ‘speak back’ to public health authorities through active and more passive forms of resistance. Ideas about the meaning of publicness also changed over time, as the boundary between the public and private in health fluctuated (Mold et al, 2019). ‘The public’ was not a population waiting to be discovered or a target for intervention, but, as Hinchcliffe and colleagues suggest, can be better thought of as ‘healthy publics’ consisting of ‘dynamic collectives of people, ideas and environments that enable health and well-being’ (Hinchliffe et al, 2018, p. 2).…”