Health is a community and public matter – but we seem to deliberately ignore this

Jacques interviews David Legge, activist in the community and public health and environmental movements since the seventies.Together they recall the 1970s and 1980s when the  Community Development in Health (CDIH) in Victoria was an attempt at creating  a preventative approach to public and community health, linking Community Development theory and practice to the on-the-ground work in the public health area, especially via local community health centres. They also discuss how the imposition of neo-liberalism and market rationalities in the provision of health services undermined and eventually eliminated this people-based approach - in Victoria after the Coalition government gained power in 1992, as well as across the WHO programs undermining many of its earlier health promotion programs and approaches.Finally, David refers to the work of the People's Health Movement which works to maintain and strengthen this democratic and social justice-based approach to health. http://www.cdinhealth.org/documents,php is the archive of  a number of publications of the Community Development in Health movement.Go to http://www.nc.org.au the website of the New Community journal; the last issue (vol. 20(3) #79 - October 2022) is dedicated to 'Getting Community (Development) back into health - and not just because of COVID-19/20/21/22...'; it includes a reprint of a 1988 article explicating the community development approach to health.(https://www.who.int/teams/primary-health-care/conference/declaration) is the last example of the work of the WHO promoting localised health services.The People's Health Movement  can be found at https://phmovement.org/