The Specters Of Three Victorian-Era Giants Are Haunting Public Health: The Relevance Of Chadwick, Virchow And Engels's Contributions To Public Health In The 21st Century

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dc.contributor.advisorRaphael, Dennis
dc.contributor.authorMedvedyuk, Stella
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-10T10:49:12Z
dc.date.available2025-04-10T10:49:12Z
dc.date.copyright2024-11-25
dc.date.issued2025-04-10
dc.date.updated2025-04-10T10:49:11Z
dc.degree.disciplineHealth
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThree Victorian-era public health giants Edwin Chadwick, Rudolph Virchow, and Friedrich Engels, each in their own way, considered the social origins of health and illness and wrote about the social conditions that threaten or promote health; the conditions now referred to as the social determinants of health. Revisiting these Victorian-era thinkers through a critical materialist lens can assist our understanding of how the issues they identified over 170 years ago continue to haunt present day society. This dissertation considers the continuities between the different approaches of these three thinkers and present-day conceptualizations of health, social determinants of health, and means of promoting health. It raises questions about why their findings continue to be considered – for better or for worse – by both the mainstream public health community and those working within the critical social science tradition. This dissertation consists of three parts. The first part examines these three Victorian-era thinkers’ contributions to public health through an analysis of biographies and primary documents. The second part is a scoping review of contemporary literature that evoked these writers from 2000 to 2023 – a period of increased interest in their writings – in 12 influential academic health and health history journals to understand their relation to present day academic writings. The third part is a thematic analysis of 11 interviews with contemporary scholars that evoke these historical figures. These interviews identified why and how these historical figures and their ideas are seen as relevant to contemporary health equity discourses. The study finds the ideas and works of these historical figures continue to influence contemporary discussion of health. Virchow’s concern with public policy continues to be the most evoked in contemporary discourse, yet Engels’s influence is increasing, and Chadwick’s is waning. Chadwick’s focus on government-led public health reform of sanitation, Virchow’s advocacy for political reform, and Engels’s critique of capitalism persist in modern public health discourses of settings and environments, public policy, and critical political economy respectively. While progressive political reforms are possible, it may be that health equity can best be achieved through reform or transformation of the economic system.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42806
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subject.keywordsPublic health
dc.subject.keywordsPublic health history
dc.subject.keywordsHealth equity
dc.subject.keywordsSocial determinants of health
dc.subject.keywordsHealth promotion
dc.subject.keywordsHealth inequalities
dc.subject.keywordsRudolf Virchow
dc.subject.keywordsFriedrich Engels
dc.subject.keywordsEdwin Chadwick
dc.subject.keywordsPolitical economy of health
dc.subject.keywordsPublic health approaches
dc.subject.keywordsPublic health policy
dc.titleThe Specters Of Three Victorian-Era Giants Are Haunting Public Health: The Relevance Of Chadwick, Virchow And Engels's Contributions To Public Health In The 21st Century
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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