Manuscript Section Guide and Index

Public Health Liberation is a rich and complex approach to understanding and affecting drivers of health inequity. A section guide and index are intended to guide the readers and serve as a referential document for future reading. Given the denseness of our discussion and the 20-30 minutes that are required for a thorough read, we suspect that readers will repeatedly return to master the constructs and theories. This guide is available for download on our website.

Be sure to disable pop-up to download pdf file.

Questions That PHL Theory Answers - Readers should be able to answer the following questions after reading the manuscript.

  • How are affected populations excluded from public health discourse and agenda-setting?

  • What are examples of structural violence and racism?

  • Why do the lead-contaminated water crises in Flint, Michigan and Washington, DC illustrate the need for public health à la PHL?

  • What is the public health economy important to study?

  • What liberation in the sense of public health? Why is it so important to PHL theoretical assumptions?

  • What are the components of PHL and how do they interact to advance health equity?

  • What is illiberation? Why is it a major barrier for achieving health equity based on PHL theory? What are causes of illiberation?

  • If a community sought to weaken structural inequity through policy changes, what are three broad categories of change that they should seek for elected and government officials to address? (Hint: theory of health inequity reproduction)

  • How and why do dominant powers within the political health economy seek to ensure that the public health economy undergoes no meaning shift toward health equity?

  • Why does health inequity persist?

  • What is the difference between anti-racism and liberation?

  • How is health inequity reproduced through human decision-making?

  • What is horizontal and vertical integration? How is it envisioned to accelerate health equity?

  • How does political theory elucidate challenges in the public health economy to explain persistent health disparities?

  • What is problematic about equity terms such as structural vulnerability and violence?

  • What is historical trauma and how does it remain relevant to persistent health inequity?

  • On what grounds would contemporary research studies on racial minorities and low-income populations be unethical?

  • Why is vibrant liberation safe spaces vital to PHL theory and practice?

  • What are ways that affected or vulnerable communities should deal with hegemonic influences?

  • How does estrangement in public health present a barrier to health inequity?

  • What are characteristics of PHL research?

  • Why are ethnic history, culture, and social identity important for PHL theory and practice?