Overview
This topic area is intended to generate discussion and encourage the sharing of information about trends in international public health. Public health is a constantly evolving discipline. It has changed dramatically since 1854 and Sir John Snow’s famous public health intervention of removing the pump handle from a contaminated well to control an outbreak of Cholera in London. In 1978, Alma Ata generated great enthusiasm to strive for ‘health for all’ by 2000. This was to be achieved, largely, through the integration of both public health initiatives and clinical care under the umbrella of Primary Health Care. More recently, the spread of infectious diseases across national borders has brought the global dimensions of public health to the centre of the international political and legal agenda. New outbreaks of diseases such as SARS, AIDS (unheard of at the time of Alma Atta), and the threat of A/H5N1 (‘Avian Flu’), have challenged traditional medical, legal and regulatory approaches to public health issues.
SO WHAT IS PUBLIC HEALTH?
In 1920, Yale professor of public health and respected public health figure C.E.A. Winslow defined public health as:
“...the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health and efficiency through organized community effort for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the education of the individual in personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and for the development of the social machinery to insure everyone a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health, so organizing these benefits as to enable every citizen to realize his birthright of health and longevity.”
Winslow’s full article “The untilled fields of Public Health” provides a very interesting historical perspective on Public Health and can be accessed at
www.jstor.org/view/00368075/ap991306/99a00010/0
Despite current trends and developments in public health, this definition which was articulated in 1920, may arguably remain the clearest and most coherent available. The field of public health draws on and incorporates the expertise and skills of many other disciplines, including biology, psychology, sociology, education, medicine, public policy and others. There are many specialties within the field of public health, yet all draw upon the five public health foundations of:
1) behavioral sciences/health education,
2) biostatistics,
3) environmental health sciences,
4) epidemiology, and
5) health services administration.
TO CHARACTERISE PUBLIC HEALTH FURTHER:
THE MISSION OF PUBLIC HEALTH is "the fulfilment of society's interest in assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy."
THE SUBSTANCE OF PUBLIC HEALTH is "organized community efforts aimed at the prevention of disease and the promotion of health."
THE ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK OF PUBLIC HEALTH "encompasses both activities undertaken within the formal structure of government and the associated efforts of private and voluntary organizations and individuals."
In addition to summarising these characteristics, the Berkeley Library site also provides further information on the essential functions, core areas and great achievements of public health. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/PUBL/whatisph.html
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Practices members have applied in their own situations
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This topic is convened by: |
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Dr Nathan Grills
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