Injury as a Field of Public Health: Achievements and Controversies

Abstract

The mission of public health is to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy and to reduce the occurrence of death and disability attributable to disease and injury. From the distinctive perspective of public health, the target is the health of the population as a whole, with a particular concern for vulnerable populations within the whole. Although public health is grounded in science, the mission and perspective of the field are shaped by the ever-evolving values of the society. Ethics and law are therefore constituent disciplines of public health policy and practice. One of the major challenges confronting contemporary practitioners of public health is the need to broaden and deepen their understanding of legal and ethical aspects of their work. This special issue of theJoumal of Law, Medicine & Ethicsresponds to this challenge. This article describes how the mission of public health has come to encompass the prevention and treatment of injury and highlights some of the political and ethical controversies now confronting the field.