A WATERSHED—TROUBLE MAKING FOR HEALTH FEATURES IN AN ISSUE WITH PLENTY TO DEBATE

This month we have contributions on a range of topics relevant to a more active approach to public health improvement. Beginning with global health, Ilona Kickbusch, one of the real policy trailblazers, puts forward her proposals for a new global social contract on health. Nothing could be more timely in the aftermath of the Iraq fiasco and the demoralisation of the international agencies charged with global security. Nancy Milio provides an appropriate companion piece, in which she nails the dangers of spin for health and security, and in Speaker’s Corner—again, completely apposite—Bernard Choi argues the case for the fire alarm approach to public health, with more real time data more actively deployed. Too often, public health practitioners behave as if their task is finished when they have completed an analysis, when in fact it is only just beginning. The real art of public health is in achieving change, something that goes well beyond a narrow, technical view of our …