A reader in promoting public health: challenge and controversy

One of the strengths of this book is the breadth of public health content that it covers, albeit in short, pithy chapters. The 31 chapters (of which 10 are reprinted or are a revised version of a previously published article) are organised into five themed parts, each introduced by one of the editors: Back to the future: reflections on multidisciplinary public health; Deconstructing and reconstructing public health; Researching health; Promoting public health through public policy; and Promoting public health at a local level. The book begins with a memo to Sir Edwin Chadwick, the architect of the 1848 British Public Health Act, to mark the 150th anniversary of that landmark piece of legislation. Written by Iqbal Sram and John Ashton, the memo was first published in the BMJ in 1998, and has been updated and contextualised for the early 21st century for this book. The authors note current challenges for public health, but assure Sir Edwin that his legacy is in good hands. The chapters selected for part one take the reader through public health challenges from health promotion and the politics of health through to the potential for social marketing based on freemarket liberal approaches overtaking collectivist ‘paternalistic’ public health. Part two is introduced as an eclectic range of cutting-edge issues which serve to deconstruct and reconstruct public health in the 21st century. Nightclubs and substance use, yoga, women’s reproductive rights, disability rights, and sex work are included to stimulate thinking about the complexities of public health in relation to these issues. Given the complex nature of construction and deconstruction, students may not grasp the significance of the theme for this part of the book. Nor are the theories of deconstruction explained so the way of presenting material on this theme is not a straightforward approach to dealing with complex challenges of deconstruction, even though each of the chapters will have interest for readers. Part three begins with an overview of public health research methodologies by Fran Baum and an evaluation of health promotion by David McQueen. These two erudite pieces are followed somewhat incongruously by a chapter on the anthropometry of Barbie to make a case for challenging statistical meth