Being there: Public health needs a public face

Abstract

It seems that business knows a thing or two about reputation management. Social marketers – and the public health community -should pay heed, because when it comes to behaviour change, reputation matters. If you don’t believe this, just ask anyone working in infant immunisation. So how is it done? How can a corporation which is legally obliged to put its shareholder’s interests first trump a health service whose raison d’être is public welfare? How come, for instance, that for the best part of thirty years the UK Government listened to the weasel words of the tobacco industry and left advertising to an obviously failing self regulatory system? How come that it has been seduced into making the same mistake for alcohol?