There are increasing warnings of not only of a "crisis in global health governance" but also of a "crisis in competency" in public health. With this in mind this paper discusses 21st century public health in view of the seminal trends which have led to a renewed political debate on public health and the characteristics of the new public health landscape as an amalgam of "healthscapes" and as networks.

While the use of "healthscapes" as an intellectual construct of analysis helps to visualize some of the global and fluid phenomena we are faced with in 21st century public health, the conceptualization of public health as a network helps to understand that it is an interconnected system that brings together various levels of governance, sectors and actors to improve health.

Within the last decade public health has prominently entered the political domain, due to geopolitical shifts, new pandemic threats and the strength of the global health industry. One of the central challenges of public health is how to harness collective action and innovation for health under these much altered circumstances. Public health training must reorient itself towards these new challenges. 21st century public health must be firmly based in fundamental norms, legal frameworks and governance mechanisms that provide a frame for network governance and the multitude of actors and should be geared towards helping reach the goal of obtaining citizens rights for all human beings of the world.

Keywords: public health; health policies; public health - trends; global health; global health governance.

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This article first appeared in Portuguese Journal of Public Health 25 anniversary Supplement Issue: Current public health challenges. Dec 2010.