WHY WE DON'T SPEND ENOUGH ON PUBLIC HEALTH: AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

The primary determinants of public health are political. Comparisons among countries have shown that the importance of public health within public institutions and the priorities given by those institutions depend on the power relations in existence in that society. Authors who attribute the limited influence of public health in the United States to the public's limited understanding of the issues and/or to the supposed anti-government position of the American population miss the roots of the problem.