Handbook

Power shapes developments in public health. It impacts public health work to: build public trust; engage with public concerns about disease, risk and preparedness; develop new modes of disease surveillance; and connect with non-health agencies and actors with the aim of improving population health. Thus, being able to identify how power operates is a useful skill for public health actors as they develop, implement and evaluate priorities, policies, programs and research. For those interested in addressing health inequities and injustices, the ability to analyse how power functions to open and close avenues for effective action is particularly vital.

In this course you will learn to differentiate between: approaches to power that frame power as only ever a problem, a means of constraining people, and; ways of examining how power can both enable and constrain changes in public health action. You will be introduced to social scientific tools developed to analyse the operation of power, and you will learn about fundamental differences between these tools. You will practise using one of these tools to critically examine how power relations shape contemporary public health practice.