Philipp Trein . Healthy or Sick? Coevolution of Health Care and Public Health in a Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. pp. 332. ISBN 9781108670883.

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Roberto Cancio
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.430

606

doi: 10.1002/wmh3.430

© 2021 Policy Studies Organization

Book Review

Philipp Trein.Healthy or Sick? Coevolution of Health Care and Public Health in a

Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. pp. 332. ISBN

9781108670883.

In Healthy or Sick? Phillip Trein, a Senior Researcher in the Department of Political

Science and International Relations at the University of Geneva, whose work has

primarily focused on the coordination and integration of public policy and the

politics of preventative health policies, brings to the conversation a topic that is

significantly important and popular today not just in the United States, during a

contentious election year; but also across the globe as governments and pro-

fessional agencies struggle to contain the current COVID‐19 pandemic meanwhile

preparing for future outbreaks in two ways: (i)mapping out the contextualization

of comparative politics of public health, concerning the connection of the inter-

sectional dimensions health care and public health and, (ii)temporal dimensions

that refer to the development of the sectors’relations amid policy divergence and

convergence in five historical case studies in Australia, Germany, Switzerland, the

United Kingdom, and the United States. At present, the increasing demand for

more preventative health policies and curative interventions not only causes in-

creases in health expenditures for governments but also conversations around

policymaking as it relates to public health and health care.

The author conducts a historical empirical analysis between health care and

public health spanning 1880–2010 using secondary literature, official documents,

and recorded instances (e.g., institutional reforms and policy). To set the context for

this analysis of the book, Trein initially defines health care and public health as two

distinctive policy sectors that have interacted uniquely across time. In particular,

defining how they differ regarding actors, policy instruments, and conflicts. Trien

discusses in‐depth his journey of theoretical priors and after mapping out the

expansive literature, proposes the development of three hypotheses. He begins by

hypothesizing three main tenants: (i)there is no distinctiveness of health care and

public health if a government is unified (i.e., meaning that the national government

has a relatively large discretion in changing policies and components of formal