Emerging and Evolving Public Health Issues

One of the most exciting aspects of the world of public health is the rapidly expanding boundaries surrounding traditional core public health functions and a rapidly developing society. Many issues that historically were viewed as law-enforcement, public safety, political, or sociological have been increasingly merged into the arena of public health. The primary reason for this development is the fact that many of these emerging and evolving public health issues have profound negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of our residents. A secondary reason is that by referring to these issues as “public health issues”, we can then employ needed public health practices to address them.

This chapter outlines a few emerging and evolving areas of public health, and our role as practitioners in meeting social, political, and ethical challenges in an increasingly complex society.