Why Public Health Is Not About Public Goods

According to the Public Goods Account, proposed by Jonny Anomaly, public health activities should only be concerned with the provision of health-related public goods. In this paper, I argue that the Public Goods Account cannot serve as an adequate account of public health activity. The main reason is that its central concept, that of health-related public goods, is itself implausible. I offer two potential understandings of health-related public goods and argue that, on both understandings, the provision of health-related public goods is neither necessary nor sufficient for a public health activity. First, on both understandings, there are plausible examples of public health activities that do not produce health-related public goods. And second, there are examples of non-public health activities that produce health-related public goods.