ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contribution that play and playfulness can make to the scientific pursuit of public health. It demonstrates how play and playfulness enable engagement and collaboration, promote innovation and curiosity, and advocate for protection of environments that enable play endeavors to be pursued. G. Gordon asserts that ‘the absence of play is a serious omission’, particularly when the associated benefits can be linked to the natural sciences, social sciences, neuroscience, environmental science – in fact all the scientific areas that contribute to public health. The pursuit of public health has historically evolved in line with the changing needs of society with scientific and technological advances enabling deeper understanding of the associations between causation and subsequent action. Public health is dependent on the wide-ranging forms and functions of scientific endeavor for securing health and wellbeing for every member of society at individual, local, national and international levels.
