Public health has developed over time to encompass a range of issues including poverty, sanitation, working conditions, hygiene, health screening, immunisation, personal lifestyles and, more latterly, community and organisational development. Terms such as public health, social medicine, health promotion and more recently, health development, have been used to signpost changing thinking about public health. Health development, arguably is a term that encapsulates not only current thinking but also articulates a vision for service development for the future that is capable of mobilising a range of partners and agencies in a common cause of improving health. As someone who, as a local government officer, has been a public health practitioner for some time but who only recently has joined the formal public health fraternity as Chair of the Health Development Agency, such an inclusive term is particularly important.

There is growing international recognition that the development of health and wellbeing is one of the most important aspects of government policy and a key marker of a national success. It has been defined …