The Politics of Talking Health: Power, Ethics, and Other Dilemmas

How do prevailing ideologies in medicine and health policymaking, which blur the line between facts and opinion, create certain values positions that not only generate the problematisation of health issues (e.g., moral panics) but also conflate and refocus health policy discussions about a disease with unrelated social issues (immigration, race, etc.)? With public health being largely the responsibility of government public health agencies, this chapter highlights a larger debate about the way, in which the state in liberal democracies exercises control over, or governs, the populace, touching on ideas of citizenship and personal responsibility for health and well-being, as well as the role public health communication plays in the struggle over knowledge and power. The attempt to predict and direct human health behaviour, not coincidentally, reinforced the attractiveness of social marketing and health promotion practices.