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Multidisciplinary public health (MDPH) has been a phenomenon in the UK of the 1990s and the early 21st century. Its achievement has been seen as a victory for non medical interests. While acknowledging this, the paper questions what sort of victory this represents. Public health in its sanitary phase in the mid-19th century was, after all, what passed for multidisciplinary with its mix of engineers, doctors and statisticians. Is the present simply a return to the sanitary phase? The paper argues that it is not, and that contemporary public health badly needs dearer definition. It identifies three dimensions of recent public health. Public health can be an occupation; a discourse or movement, and also an institutional location of which public health research is part. Looked at in this frame, public health has been multidisciplinary in the post war period. The development of public health research out of social medicine in the 1950s was multidisciplinary. Public health campaigning, separate from public health professionals, has also been multidisciplinary since the 1970s. Public health as an occupation has been preoccupied with its professional positioning. Will the wider multidisciplinary impetus of public health now be lost in a preoccupation with status? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Multidisciplinary Public Health Forum (MPHF) was a 'network of networks' that was formed through grass roots public conferences held during the mid 1990s. It championed the development of a trained, developed and accredited multidisciplinary public health workforce in the UK. This paper draws on documentary evidence and from a series of semi-format interviews held with individuals who were involved in the development and work of the Forum, to explore why the Forum was influential, the key milestones of the journey and the lessons that we might learn for the continued development of the public health function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the milestones, challenges and achievements in establishing the UK Voluntary Register for Public Health Specialists (UKVRPHS), which was launched in 2003. Developments in the UKVRPHS since 2003 are described in the context of the continuing development of the UK multidisciplinary public health workforce as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the UK Multidisciplinary Public Health Forum in developing the public health workforce has been the subject of some discussion. However, much of the work to date has focused on the impact of the Forum in the English context. This paper uses the same techniques used to examine the impact of the Forum in England to describe the situation in Scotland. The key themes that emerge are that the impact of the Multidisciplinary Public Health Forum in Scotland was marginal and that a multi-professional approach was the more likely route of development. The adoption of regulatory policy by the UK Government in Westminster had the effect of producing a multidisciplinary approach in Scotland. The relationship of these findings to the experiences of Wales and Northern Ireland is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1999 onwards most English NHS regions launched multidisciplinary public health training schemes. These schemes were open to those from backgrounds other than medicine and followed on from the announcement of a new multidisciplinary Public Health Specialist post--a post equivalent to the traditional medical Consultant in Public Health Medicine. This article documents the issues arising during the first few years of the multidisciplinary public health training schemes. It also includes a number of case studies from trainees who have passed through the training schemes, examining the positive and negative experiences of these trainees. The paper reveals how the schemes initially varied considerably by region, in respect of pay and other terms and conditions. The case studies from ex-trainees reveal a number of positive and negative features of the training schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]