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Article: Public health and the environment: floundering partners.
- Article from:
- Journal of Environmental Health
- Article date:
- July 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 National Environmental Health Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Walter Lippman said, "When everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking." My comments may challenge rather than conform to conventional public health wisdom.
"Few Americans have any real idea of what the words 'public health' mean." That is a direct quotation from a January 1997 Harris poll. Almost half of the respondents mistakenly identified public health as health care.
We may all think we know what public health is, but our definitions vary widely. And if we can't agree on the nature of the field, we shouldn't be surprised if the public and our political leaders do not understand and adequately support public health. Few definitions of public ...