The Significance Of ‘Sectors’ In Calls For Urban Public Health Intersectoralism: an Australian perspective

Calls for intersectoral approaches in The New Public Health are characterised by their hortatory character, their inattention to root causes and their apparent faith in approaches that lie in administrative rather than political domains. What is missing is serious consideration of the modes of sectoring which intersectoralism is meant to overcome. Advancing the agenda changes envisaged by The New Public Health requires erosion of the structural underpinnings of existing sectors. The Australian experience, however, suggests that effective advocacy of these changes will require forms of political action which are outside the confines of existing modes of sectoring and hence are able to challenge them.