Contemporary Health Studies. Louise Warwick-Booth

TB Alliance (Boseley, 2020a). Kirchhelle and Roberts (2019) point out that the market is broken, as even the injection of £520 million of public money since 2016 has not stopped industry departments responsible for antibiotic development from shrinking. Instead they call for a publicly owned approach, which will be better able to respond to need rather than prioritizing commercial interests.

Summary

       Identifying substantive health threats is constructed by definitions of health, considerations of determinants of health, magnitude, seriousness as well as media and moral panics about health threats.

       Epidemiological transition has changed global patterns from infectious diseases at the start of the twentieth century to chronic diseases in the twenty-first century and this pattern is predicted to continue.

       Health threats in the twenty-first century will require global action around the major determinants of health such as poverty, inequity, climate change and population growth.

Questions

      1 This chapter shows that risk is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Can you identify all of the factors that influence the construction of health-related risk perceptions?

      2 Identify one area of risk to public health, for example, a newly emerging infectious disease. Now think about all of the consequences of risk perceptions in relation to this. Reflect upon the likely political, economic and health consequences of risk perceptions in relation to this area.

      3 Consider the role of science in relation to the conceptualization and management of health risks. How important is science within this process?

Further reading

      World Health Organization (2020) web-pages specifically. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019 This is an excellent summary of the complex global health risks presented in a structured easy-to-read format, a top-ten list. The web-pages highlight the major health risks and provide some detail about each of them.

Roig, B., Weiss, K. and Thireau, V., eds (2018) Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks. London, Academic Press. This book discusses the emerging public-health risks from the technological, environmental, health and energy sectors, as well as their social impacts, exploring how increased scientific knowledge determines understanding. The book also offers readers a range of case studies from across the world.

      Rushton, S. (2019) Security and Public Health. Cambridge, Polity. This book explores the ways in which governments manage threats of infectious disease and try to protect the public from pandemics. The politics and security of pandemics in the contemporary world is explored, looking at the impact on civil liberties, treatment rather than prevention and the diseases that gain attention.

      See also the website accompanying this book at www.politybooks.com/chs