Public health and physical planning--a time to reconsider?

Accepting that public health is an interdisciplinary field, the relationship between early public health legislation and measures and the origins of physical planning is used to underline the importance of procedural flexibility in both fields and of a combined approach to remove conditions supportive of diseases. While the conditions under which both planning and public health operate in South Africa are shown to have changed greatly, the static approach adopted by both disciplines has produced inappropriate responses. Four basic criteria for a new approach are provided and the effects which these can have on health and planning policy are illustrated, using examples involving water supply, sanitation requirements and squatter settlements.