ABSTRACT

In the introduction to the volume Conceptualising Public Health: Historical and Contemporary Struggles over Key Concepts, Sophy Bergenheim, Johan Edman, Johannes Kananen and Merle Wessel provide a comprehensive guide to the book and its academic fields. The chapter clarifies the volume’s conceptual history approach and goal; the editors and contributors approach concepts and discourses related to public health, health policy and medicine from an analytical and constructivist perspective in order to reach their various historical and political layers. Furthermore, the reader is provided with a historical overview of international and Nordic public health history, in order to properly contextualise the book’s chapters. The introductory chapter also presents central literature and positions the volume in relevant academic fields, as well as presenting the anthology’s individual chapters and their contribution.