The authors describe how the mission of public health has come to encompass the prevention and amelioration of injury. They also highlight the political and ethical challenges now confronting the field, including extension of the analytic tools of public health from unintentional to intentional injuries, integration of behavioral and environmental perspectives, understanding and managing risk-risk trade-offs, responding satisfactorily to charges of paternalism, and maintaining scientific credibility while advocating for controversial interventions.
Citation
Richard J. Bonnie & Bernard Guyer, Injury as a Field of Public Health: Achievements and Controversies, 30 Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics 267–280 (2002).