Grandstand. We, researchers, teachers, professionals in the field, decision-makers, association leaders, consider that public health as it is implemented is now inadequate and obsolete. It no longer meets its basic objective: health for all, regardless of age, social condition, gender, level of education, origin…
Current public health strategies are nothing more than band-aids incapable of stemming the deterioration of health and the increase in inequalities. The protection and well-being of the entire population are requirements for all political leaders, as recalled by the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva/WHO charter). Two axes are fundamental to guide a modern and effective public health policy.
Our first proposition is based on facts. The health and development of children are dependent on the economic precariousness of the parents, the type of education, the social network surrounding them, housing, the neighborhood of residence, access to green spaces (health of children). The most effective strategies to improve the mental health of students lie in the organization of lessons and their validation (mental health of students).
Insufficiently effective assessment systems
The most effective actions for minimizing psychosocial risks in the workplace relate to the organization of work, the valuation of tasks and the type of management (The Health Equity Institute). Health inequalities are built very early in our own education system according to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Urban configurations affect health in its social, mental and physical dimensions (the WHO guide). These social determinants play a major role in the state of health of the population and are at the origin of social and territorial inequalities in health (social determinants of health, WHO).
However, French public health policy is content to “treat”, including preventively. Public health plans by pathology, mainly informative prevention strategies, or even the centralization of health skills generate a behavioral orientation of public health policies, without modifying those that impact health from childhood: education, housing, transport , employment, resources, etc.
Admittedly, there are systems and authorities for combining health and non-health issues, such as city policy, local health contracts, the interministerial committee for health or even public policy coordination commissions. But to date they are insufficiently effective, either because their scope is too narrow, or because they lack the status and/or the means to act to preserve the health of populations in the face of the interests of non-health sectors.
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