1st Edition

Public Health Explored 50 Stories to Change the World

By John Ashton Copyright 2021

    An understanding of public health has never been more important!

    There has been a growing interest in public health, driven by concerns for social justice and sustainability, but it is currently in the headlines as never before. The failure of governments to get to grips with the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated widespread ignorance of the basics of a public health approach to threats to health and well-being.

    Relevant to all interested individuals but particularly students and professionals within nursing, medicine, social work and public health, this book encourages critical debate and reflection to develop a deep understanding of the complexities of public health issues. It offers 50 powerful stories and sayings around public health that could just change the world! Accompanied by searching questions for discussion and case studies that provide context and link each aphorism to a key event or theme, important messages around public health are extracted and explored.

    Introduction 

    Section 1: Concepts

    1. Defining the problem

    2. On forgetting your principles

    3. The world is a fast flowing river

    4. Elephants on a train in Africa

    5. Elephants and the prevention of infant deaths

    6. Eating an elephant

    7. The age of Hygieia

    8. William Morris on health

    9. ‘Doing health’: reclaiming the ‘H’ word

    10. Foreseeing and forestalling

    Section 2: Issues

    11. A fish is the last one to see the water

    12. Not invented here

    13. Listen to the community

    14. Beware of healthism

    15. Go to the people

    16. Conspiracies against the laity

    17. We’re doing it already

    18. Prophets are never recognised in their own country

    19. Professionals should be on tap not on top

    20. Primum non Nocere

    Section 3: Getting to go

    21. Less is usually more

    22. Starting where they are

    23. Don’t follow the yellow brick road

    24. Caveat emptor

    25. Community organisers beware

    26. Self fulfilling prophecy kills

    27. Politics is medicine on a large scale

    28. Columbus on the need for strategy

    29. Starting a rumour

    30. Edwin Chadwick and The Times

    Section 4: Making a difference

    31. The half-life of evidence

    32. Proof and evidence

    33. The art and science of public health

    34. On strategic underview

    35. The hidden health care system

    36. Be careful what you are selling

    37. The conspiracy of silence

    38. Achieving change

    39. Let the dough rise slowly

    40. A sense of place

    Section 5: Reflections

    41. Public health is an investment

    42. William Henry Duncan’s establishment

    43. On growing potatoes

    44. Life and risk

    45. The importance of humour

    46. Killing with kindness

    47. Every silver lining has a cloud

    48. Making things happen

    49. Success and failure

    50. The dilemma of capital cities

    Biography

    John Ashton is one of Britain’s foremost public health consultants whose footprint is to be found on many of the most innovative public health initiatives of the last 40 years. Born in Liverpool, John was educated at the University of Newcastle Medical School and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, before returning to the north west where he was a pioneer of the New Public Health. In the 1980s he led work on health promotion, reducing teenage pregnancy, establishing the first large-scale syringe exchange programme in the face of epidemics of heroin injection and the arrival of the HIV virus, and was one of the originators of the World Health Organisation Healthy Cities Project, now a global programme. John has always bridged the worlds of academia and practice. He is acknowledged as a first-class communicator and inspirational teacher. He has been adviser to the Crown Prince of Bahrain’s Covid-19 Taskforce and wrote a book on the pandemic. John was awarded the CBE in 2000 for contributions to the NHS.

    “A fascinating and intriguing book, which has the potential to inspire and instigate debate and argument about the most pressing challenges we face as earthlings. Written with humour, seriousness and experience, it is an essential addition to public health learning and practice.”

    Richard LeeSenior Lecturer in Public Health, Northumbria University

    “John Ashton has always been a captivating storyteller, both through the power of the spoken and the written word. In this beautifully easy-to-read book, he has brought together some of the many stories that he and his dear friend and late colleague Lowell Levin, Emeritus Professor at Yale have shared with students and health professionals over the years.

    Both Lowell and John have been instrumental in broadening the public health agenda, promoting the importance of the role of social determinants on health and in particular, thinking creatively about the role of health promotion and the importance of community action in creating a healthy society...”

    Dr Debbi StanistreetInterim Head of Dept of Public Health and Epidemiology, RCSI

    “In this book, John Ashton and Lowell Levin take us on an enjoyable journey through different continents, countries and eras to demonstrate (with illustrative examples) how public health measures can make a tremendous difference to people’s lives and for the societies in which they live. A highly recommended reading of universal interest for a broad audience.”

    Dr Piroska ÖstlinDirector of the Division of Policy and Governance for Health and Well-being, WHO Regional Office for Europe

    John McKnight has often remarked that “Institutions learn from studies, but communities learn from stories”. So too can health professionals, as Lowell Levin and John Ashton demonstrated in their own careers and now in this book. Based on 50 favourite aphorisms published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the book illustrates each of them with case studies (stories) and points for discussion. As John says in the introduction, this book communicates abstract ideas in tangible ways, helping public health professionals to also learn from stories.“

    Dr Trevor Hancock, Hon FFPHRetired Professor and Senior Scholar, School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria