 There are significant debates about how to conceptualize health; is it the absence of disease, or does it involve more than that? Can health be defined without reference to normative concepts? Other debates concern the value of health, and whether health is good as an end, good as a means or both or neither; whether the attitudes towards a given condition of those who have it affect whether it counts as healthy or unhealthy; and a variety of other questions. (Ananth 2008; Boorse 1975; Coggon 2012; Hoffman 2010; Holland 2007; see the entry on  concepts of health and disease).  We will not rehearse these debates here. Even if we put these questions about the concept of health to the side, however, there are other questions that concern the nature of public health. Can the health of the public meaningfully be understood only as an aggregation of the health of each person that comprises the public, or is it something more than that? Is the health of the public something of value in its own right?