As public health and medical breakthroughs of the early 20th century controlled infectious diseases and expanded life expectancy, public health shifted its attention from infectious to chronic disease. This era of public health primarily focused on individual-level risk factors and intervention approaches. Most recently there has been a movement to re-emphasize the importance of fundamental determinants of health and disease, including economic, social and physical conditions.
The public health perspective highlights many mechanisms through which laws affect economic, social and physical conditions that, in turn, affect population distributions of risky or protective exposures and risky or protective behaviors. Exposures and behaviors, in turn, affect population health outcomes.
To view the original publication through the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN), click here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2042591
Second Edition Publication Date: 8/15/2023
Current Authors: Kelli A. Komro, PhD, University of Florida, College of Medicine and Alexander Wagenaar, PhD, University of Florida, College of Medicine
Original Publication Date: 04/10/2012
Original Author(s): Kelli A. Komro, PhD, University of Florida, College of Medicine, Ryan J. O'Mara, MS, University of Florida, College of Medicine, Alexander Wagenaar, PhD, University of Florida, College of Medicine