ABSTRACT
Public health practitioners naturally tend to have an orientation towards prevention in their work. However, prevention and restoration of health is not always possible. This chapter begins by discussing briefly how the notion of vulnerability is conceptualised. Five case studies are provided that focus on different groups—people with mental illness, people from refugee backgrounds, people living with hepatitis C, people with chronic and terminal illness, and people who are in prison—to illustrate different forms of vulnerability and the variations in the ways the public health system in Australia has responded. Australia is one of a handful of countries receiving refugees for resettlement under the United Nations High Commission for Refugees humanitarian resettlement program. Health-promoting palliative care offers an innovative approach by drawing on principles of health promotion as represented in the Ottawa Charter and applying these to the core concerns of the hospice tradition that is the basis of contemporary palliative care.
