A New Field of Public Health

Preamble

We redefine the architecture of Social Public Health by shifting the primary unit of analysis from 'systems' to 'institutions'—not just as bureaucratic entities, but as ecological agents through which society flows, constrains, and adapts. This is a new epistemological pillar of public health—rooted not in surveillance and control, but in narrative, discourse, institutional ecology, and adaptive response.

Purpose

To name, shape, and mobilize a new field of public health—one that treats community voice, institutional adaptation, and relational flow as central to population health. This Manifesto is a call to action, a declaration of framework, and a guide for those who wish to intervene not only in health outcomes, but in the very terrain that shapes them.

Framing Shift

Social Public Health is not a replacement for traditional public health—it is an evolutionary adaptation. Where traditional public health grounds itself in surveillance, population-level risk, and biomedical control, Social Public Health draws from community-led solutions, institutional ecology, discourse framing, and relational infrastructure. It is a biologized social model grounded in adaptive capacity, environmental embodiment, and systems-aware intervention.

Of the branches of public health, Social Public Health focuses on promoting institutional and interpersonal health-positive outcomes. 

• Social ecosystems are comprised of local communities interacting within their physical environment.
• Local ecosystems are geographically and culturally unique and dynamic.
• Social institutions within each locality establish roles and norms that shape community interactions. 
• Institutional norms can reflect dominant cultural norms and local community norms.
• The interaction of institutional activities within a social environment shapes the pattern of belief-based expectations that workers, families, and people operate within.
• When interactions between social institutions are aligned with health-positive community action, communities flourish. 
• When communities flourish, our social norms and the systems they operate through, adapt to current environmental pressures.
• When we adapt together, together we will be ok.