Challenges and dilemmas for Public Health 20th of April 2015
Public health – the health of the population, rather than just those having medical treatment – is literally all around us. The questions it throws up are constantly in the news. When should the Government introduce vaccination, or screening? Should it be doing more (or less) on smoking, or on trying to tackle obesity? How worried need we be about flu, or Ebola, or the re-emergence of TB? What should taxpayers’ money be spent on – should the NHS be the automatic priority, or is prevention of ill-health just as important? What does “cost-effectiveness” really mean? Is the NHS sustainable at all, unless we live healthier lives? This talk will outline some of the ways in which analysis is used to inform Government policy on public health. There is a lot that science can tell us. But there is also a lot of uncertainty, both public and politicians may have odd ideas about what the evidence actually means, and people can have very different attitudes to risk. Interest groups of all sorts vie for influence. So the talk is also about the challenges and dilemmas in trying to devise policies that take account both of what we know and of what we don’t.
Peter Bennett
Public and International Health Directorate, Department of Health, London . After gaining a doctorate in Philosophy of Science at Sussex University, Peter had an academic career before joining the Department of Health in 1996, where he now heads the Heath Protection Analytical Team. The team provides policy analysis on a wide range of Public Health issues, including immunisation programmes, healthcare-associated infections and emergency preparedness. He has led the production of various risk assessments, e.g. of variant CJD being spread by surgery or blood transfusion, and analysis of the 2009-10 “Swine Flu” outbreak. He produced the Department’s guidelines on Risk Communication and, with the former Chief Medical Officer Sir Kenneth Calman, edited Risk Communication and Public Health, republished by OUP in 2010.
