Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 48 (2023), 2

The hygiene measures of the 19th century are usually considered as the origins of modern public health (Rosen 2015; Porter 1994; Flügel 2012). Above all, the catastrophic working conditions in the industrialized cities promoted the spread of infectious and viral diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, or diphtheria. The expansion of sewage systems, centralised framework conditions for the food industry as well as further general hygiene regulations have brought about the far-reaching containment of many infectious and viral diseases in the 20th century. At the same time, medical institutions have emerged not only to further develop research on individual diseases, but also to advance public education and control of appropriate measures to contain the prevalent forms of disease. Since then, the specificity of public health has been the combination of medical, social, and political expertise involved in the research, development, and implementation of public health interventions. However, they have not only led to the emergence of new medical disciplines and institutions, but also revealed the importance of social movements and political action within the field of public health. In many cases, it is the political struggles in the public sphere that have led to the introduction of new medical and governmental measures. These social movements have taken very different forms over the last 200 years, both in their composition and in their political-ideological orientation. Often they are simultaneously supported by lay people and experts, connected to regressive and progressive ideologies alike, and have an impact on medical as well as political institutions. This blending of different actors, discourses and political positions concerns movements as diverse as the sanitary movement of the 19th century (Rosen 2015, p. 106 ff.; Snowden 2019, p. 184 ff.), the eugenics movement at the beginning of the 20th century (Bashford 2010; Kevles 1985), the women’s health movements (Morgen 2002), the aids activism of the 20th century or the planetary health movement of the present day (Prescott and Logan 2019). Furthermore, it is often difficult to make a clear distinction between top-down and bottom-up changes.