This course examines how public health policy, practice and research draw on different and sometimes competing ideas about power, social equality and risk management. We will consider different approaches to understanding: the role of population health and biomedicine in social change; surveillance; patient empowerment and responsibility; indigenous health; and health equity.  The course examines how these different approaches are informed by theories of social exclusion, embodiment and power, by postcolonial theories and by current debates about globalisation.  In addition, we will explore how these approaches to health might assist in the development of socially sensible public health policies and practices on the local and global levels.