Normative Aspects of Public Health

ZiF Research Group 2013/2014 Convenors: Stefan Huster (Bochum | GER) and Thomas Schramme (Hamburg | GER)

People have always tried to maintain, improve, or restore their health. Increasing knowledge about the mechanisms that cause disease has led to enhanced opportunities to prevent the outbreak of disease. The prevention of disease is a central task of public health measures. For instance, improved hygiene has significantly contributed to increased health. But most recently the focus has been widened to include health determinants such as individual lifestyles and social factors. We have come to know that these aspects have a strong impact on health, and also that they are strongly related to class. This becomes especially clear when considering the extensive epidemiological data that show a stark correlation between socioeconomic status and life expectancy. These finding have stirred up political concern. After all, the state has the same obligations to each of its citizens; drastic inequalities regarding health and life expectancy do not seem tolerable in a welfare state.
Thus the empirical phenomena are fairly well known. Yet their normative implications are less often discussed: Whether, and in what sense, these health inequalities are injustices. Moreover, how can they be tackled? We might know that some of the biggest 'killers' in modern societies are significantly influenced by nutrition and diet, but this does not imply that we know what we may and should do in order to promote behaviour conducive to health in citizens. Here we need to ask how much we care for or value health and whether interventions in individual freedom can be justified by the purpose of health promotion.
The research group Normative Aspects of Public Health aims at discussing these topics in a systematic and thorough way. For this purpose, an interdisciplinary approach is vital. The group will cover genuinely new ground, for this topic has received little treatment in the German-speaking world. The project will offer an opportunity to assemble a group of experts from different disciplinary backgrounds who will thereby be enabled to collaborate over and above the lifetime of the project.