Book Reviews
Public health Australia: an introduction
James S Lawson and Adrian E Bauman (eds)
ISBN: 0 07 470878 3 1998 229 pp pages Roseville: McGraw-Hill Book Company
Kerry Mummery
School of Health and Human Performance, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton QLD
For those individuals interested in health, the book by Lawson and Bauman provides an excellent primer in the concepts and principles of public health and as such, should constitute background reading for those in the area of sociology of health and healthcare in Australia. Although written in the Australian context and driven by Australian examples, the principles explained in the book are applicable to health beyond the borders of the southern continent. The authors acknowledge the book, which began its life as an assemblage of course notes developed in support of a Masters of Public Health program, to be an introductory set of ideas for both students and health professionals.
The book is divided into 28 chapters across five sections. The first section covers the principles of public health, including the history of public health and the underpinnings of public health research. The second section is devoted to the risk factors for health and disease. Encompassing a range of factors from behavioural, societal to environmental, this section acts as a good preface in the area for students and lecturers alike. The third section of the book deals specifically with the causes of most Australian deaths with chapters on cardiovascular disease, cancer and trauma. The fourth section addresses conditions responsible for widespread acute and chronic disability. Topics covered in this section addresses the health problems affecting special population, including adolescents, aboriginal health, migrant and occupational health.
The authors have sought to 'provide discussion, debate and interest' (p. vii) in public health issues in Australia - mainly among a range of health professionals as well as undergraduate medical and health science students. However, in producing what is essentially an introductory textbook, there is little in the way of controversial issues put forward to fuel debate. After a promising start in the introductory chapter where the lead author elaborates on the social and economic influences on death and disease across the past 300 years, the book takes a more conventional turn to the principles, risk factors and causes of death and disease in Australia. One is left to assume that the discussion and debate emanated within the lectures around which this book is constructed.
The authors draw interesting parallels between the plague epidemics of the Middle Ages and contemporary responses to the HIV epidemic. Then and now, the authors contend, we see individuals and whole groups of the population victimised, blamed, and often quarantined. Times change, responses stay the same. Indeed the authors argue that little is truly new in public health; instead we see constant reinvention throughout history. This, in the author's minds, includes the new public health movements embodied in the Ottawa Charter and the Jakarta Declaration. Perhaps I was hasty to say there is little controversy or debate between the covers!
Readers in the field of health sociology will still find the book a very useful read. Teachers of undergraduate in courses health or medical sociology may wish to consider including this as a recommended reading on the course syllabus. As such it would provide an excellent background to the cultural underpinnings of public health in Australia.
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