Freedman, Lynn

This article examines criticisms advanced by public health professionals that public health has become too "politicized". The author argues that epidemiological concepts of risk are routinely used in the legal and political systems to apportion blame and responsibility for poor health. This article uses the example of reproductive health and rights to argue that new understandings of the connection between socioeconomic conditions and poor health will only generate change when they are reframed into political claims and pressed by social movements.

This article discusses ways in which the analytical tools of public health can be used in conjunction with emerging theories of human rights to craft effective advocacy strategies, focusing particularly on women's reproductive health and reproductive rights. It notes that public health research, although often presented as an objective scientific inquiry, is actually a value-laden and therefore, highly political endeavor that should be used by advocates to elucidate the connections between women's health and the wider social, economic, and political conditions in which they live.