Routledge Understanding Public Health: Productive Processing of Internal and External Reality

This book develops a new model of the genesis of health, on the basis of the interplay between genetic and environmental factors. Hurrelmann and Richter build upon the basic theories of health and the popular model of salutogenesis to offer a comprehensive interdisciplinary theory of health genesis and success: Productive Processing of Reality (PPR). The authors show that health is the lifelong dynamic process of dealing with the internal reality of physical and psychological impulses and the external reality of social and material impulses. To demonstrate this, the book is split into three interconnected parts. Part A analyses the determinants of health, providing an overview of the insights of current research and the impact of socioeconomic influences and gender on health. Part B covers public health, social, learning and coping theories, all of which understand health as an interaction between people and their environment. Part C draws on these four theories to outline PPR, stressing the interrelation between physical and mental constitution and the demands of the social and mental environment, and suggesting strategies for coping with these demands during the life course. Understanding Public Health: Productive Processing of Internal and External Reality will be valuable reading for students and researchers in psychology, sociology, educational science, public health and medical science, and for policymakers in public health. About the Author Klaus Hurrelmann is Senior Professor of Public Health and Education at Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He was the founding dean of the first school of public health in Germany and established the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence at Bielefeld University. Matthias Richter is Professor and Head of the Institute of Medical Sociology at the Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg. For more than 15 years, he has garnered an active interest in the social determinants of health. His research and professional interests include child and adolescent research, with particular focus on explaining health inequalities.