A CALL TO PUBLIC HEALTH ARMS

In this issue one of our Board members, Gabriel Scally, offers a public health calling ballad, urging public health personnel to work together and take inspiration from some of the great figures of the past. Gabriel reminds us that public health is more than a technical activity. In a recent article in the BMJ, Iona Heath explores this issue at some length from the perspective of a general practitioner working in a stressed part of London.¹ Some of us have felt increasing unease at the normalisation of a reductionist approach to health improvement, based on the performance management of the rather narrow range of medical interventions that can impact on health compared to the bigger impact of policies and programmes in other areas of everyday life – rather like those …