ABSTRACT
Statutory remedies provide mechanisms for bodies with responsibility for public health. Individuals wishing to protect their own health must turn to common law, which has traditionally included both public and private law. However, the distinction between public and private law is particularly inappropriate to public health. Public health may mean in some contexts the accumulated health of individuals, and in other contexts the profile of a nation’s health. There will be circumstances when only a few will suffer a public health harm, and those individuals can pursue their own private remedies. At other times, when the threat is to the health of the community, a more public legal challenge to the health threat is called for. However the remedy is framed, it is still focused on procuring a public right and benefit.
There is a range of common law actions within the law of tort which enable individuals to bring actions in their own right and on their own instigation when their health is at risk.
