Public health policy in developed countries

Public health policies might thus be thought of as the policies that guide these ‘organized efforts’ to protect and improve health. The scope of such policies depends a good deal, however, on what is considered to be entailed by ‘organized efforts’. and on how centrally ‘organized efforts’ are understood to be related to efforts that are more decentralized, more informal, less organized, perhaps even ‘spontaneous’. The relative importance and legitimacy of centralized versus decentralized uses of knowledge in protecting and enhancing health is a common underlying theme in discussion of public health policy. This chapter discusses public health policy, and differences in outcomes, across different developed countries.