Multidisciplinary public health: leading from the front?

This article argues that public health historically evolved in Britain as a multidisciplinary project. The return to its multidisciplinary roots remains an essential but insufficient condition for its future success. Despite its part-emergence from the 'new public health', institutional public health is hampered by short-term strategies and a preoccupation with evidence when it requires a more powerful analysis of contemporary society, a more imaginative engagement with political structures culture and communications, and an embrace of ecological approaches in place of national public health strategies of surrogate consumerism.