What is Public Health??
Summary
TLDRThis video explores public health, highlighting its significant role in increasing life expectancy and improving population health. Public health is defined as the science and art of preventing disease and promoting health through societal efforts. It differs from clinical medicine by addressing the root causes of health issues and focusing on prevention and population-wide strategies. The video covers key areas of public health, including protection, promotion, and prevention, and emphasizes the need for coordinated efforts from governments, organizations, and communities to achieve healthier societies.
Takeaways
- 📈 Public health has significantly increased life expectancy, contributing 25 of the 30 extra years gained in the 20th century.
- 🧠 Health is defined by the WHO as complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease.
- ⚕️ Public health focuses on preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organized societal efforts.
- 🚑 Clinical medicine focuses on individual health, while public health addresses the broader causes and prevention of health issues.
- 🔍 Public health examines multiple factors like individual behavior, social conditions, and economic environments to understand health outcomes.
- 🌍 Social determinants of health, including education, employment, and social support, are critical to improving population health.
- 🏛️ Public health is a shared responsibility involving governments, private sectors, NGOs, and communities.
- 🛡️ The core functions of public health are protection, promotion, and prevention of health-related issues.
- 🧬 Protection involves controlling diseases, managing environmental hazards, and ensuring workplace safety.
- 📊 Enabling public health requires good governance, advocacy, a trained workforce, and accurate data to guide actions.
Q & A
What is public health?
-Public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.
How is public health different from clinical medicine?
-Clinical medicine focuses on treating individuals and their immediate health problems, while public health takes a broader, holistic approach by focusing on prevention and addressing the underlying factors that influence health in a population.
How did public health interventions impact life expectancy in the U.S. between 1900 and 1999?
-Public health interventions helped increase life expectancy in the U.S. by over 30 years, with 25 of those years attributed to public health efforts.
What is the World Health Organization's definition of health?
-The WHO defines health as 'a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being rather than the mere absence of disease or infirmity.'
Why does public health focus on social determinants of health?
-Public health focuses on social determinants of health because they involve the complex interactions between individual characteristics, lifestyle, and the physical, social, and economic environments that influence overall health.
What are the three core service areas of public health?
-The three core service areas of public health are Protection, Promotion, and Prevention.
What are some examples of protection in public health?
-Examples of protection in public health include controlling infectious diseases, managing environmental hazards, ensuring a healthy workplace, and managing health emergencies.
What does health promotion in public health involve?
-Health promotion focuses on improving health by promoting healthy behaviors throughout the life course and addressing the social determinants of health.
Who is responsible for public health?
-Responsibility for public health rests with all sectors of society, including health departments, other government agencies, the private sector, NGOs, international organizations, and communities.
What are the key enablers for public health services to function effectively?
-The key enablers include good governance, advocacy for health-supportive actions, a well-trained public health workforce, and timely, accurate information for health actions.
Outlines
📊 Introduction to Public Health and Its Impact
The video begins by introducing public health, emphasizing its significant role in improving population health and saving lives. For example, life expectancy in the U.S. increased by over 30 years from 1900 to 1999, with 25 of those years credited to public health interventions. The video then outlines the key topics to be covered, including the definition of public health, how it differs from clinical medicine, and who is responsible for it. It starts by defining health according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which focuses on complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Public health is then described as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through collective societal efforts.
🔍 Public Health vs. Clinical Medicine
This section contrasts public health with clinical medicine by illustrating an example of a person with a broken leg. Clinical medicine focuses on the immediate health issue, such as treating the fracture. In contrast, public health takes a holistic approach, addressing factors that contributed to the accident, such as driving skills, substance use, or road safety. Public health aims to prevent future occurrences by addressing underlying causes, which often involve complex interactions between individual, social, and environmental factors. These are known as the social determinants of health.
🌍 The Scope of Public Health and Responsibility
Public health addresses broad, complex issues related to the various determinants of health. It requires actions across individual characteristics, behaviors, and environmental factors. This section explains that public health interventions focus on upstream factors, aiming to benefit the entire population. The responsibility for public health is shared among various sectors, including health departments, government agencies, the private sector, NGOs, and international organizations, all working together toward improving population health.
🔑 Core Areas of Public Health
The World Federation of Public Health Associations has established a framework that identifies three core service areas of public health: Protection, Promotion, and Prevention. Protection includes controlling infectious diseases, managing environmental hazards, and ensuring workplace health. Promotion focuses on improving population health through activities that address individual behaviors and social determinants of health. Prevention involves actions like vaccination and screening to avoid health issues before they arise. Each of these core areas requires enabling factors such as good governance, advocacy, adequate public health workforce capacity, and timely, accurate health information.
🎯 Conclusion: Public Health in Action
In this final section, the video provides a quick overview of how public health functions in practice. It recaps the key points discussed, including the definition and scope of public health, its differences from clinical medicine, the stakeholders responsible for it, and the essential frameworks that guide public health efforts. The emphasis is on the importance of collaboration and comprehensive strategies to improve the health of populations.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Public Health
💡Life Expectancy
💡World Health Organization (WHO)
💡Clinical Medicine
💡Social Determinants of Health
💡Prevention
💡Health Promotion
💡Health Protection
💡Governance
💡Advocacy
Highlights
Public health has significantly increased life expectancy, with 25 of the 30 extra years in the U.S. being attributed to public health interventions.
Public health focuses on preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.
The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not just the absence of disease.
Public health is different from clinical medicine, which focuses on individual treatment, while public health addresses the root causes of health problems for entire populations.
An example of public health's holistic approach: after an accident, public health would investigate why it occurred and aim to prevent future accidents.
Public health tackles the social determinants of health, including economic, social, and environmental factors, to improve population health.
Creating a healthy community involves multiple sectors, from government agencies to international organizations, all working together.
There are three core areas of public health: protection, promotion, and prevention.
Protection involves controlling infectious diseases, managing environmental hazards, and handling health emergencies.
Promotion focuses on improving both individual behaviors and social determinants of health across the population.
Prevention aims to stop health issues before they occur, with activities like vaccination and screening.
Good governance is essential for public health to function, ensuring adequate support, organization, and policy enforcement.
Advocacy is crucial for public health, helping to influence stakeholders and secure commitment for health goals.
A well-trained public health workforce is needed to implement and maintain effective health initiatives.
Accurate, timely information through research, monitoring, and evaluation is critical for informed public health actions.
Transcripts
Hello and welcome to this video where we are going to talk about “Public Health”!
“Public health” has made a significant impact on the health of populations…….making
people healthy and saving lives. For example, in the United States,
between 1900 to1999, people’s life expectancy has increased by over 30 years…
Did you know that 25 of these “extra years” gained are due to public health interventions?!
So in this video, we are going to take a look at what public health is,
how it is different to clinical medicine, who is responsible for doing it and how it’s done!
First of all…let’s have a look at what “health” is.
The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being rather than a mere absence of disease or infirmity.”
This is a pretty bold and ambitious definition that prompts people to look beyond diseases and
focus not only on the physical aspect of health but also the mental and social aspects as well.
…..and public health?? Well…..public health is the science and art of
preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society.
Ok….. so how is different to clinical medicine??? Let’s take a look at an example.
Let’s say someone has an accident and has a broken leg.
A clinician’s main focus is the immediate health problem……..fixing the fractured leg.
Clinicians focus on the individual.. The public health approach would be holistic
and would focus on figuring out how and why this person had an accident so that actions can be
taken to prevent it from happening again. For example:
Why did he have the accident? Was there a problem with his vision?
Was it a poor knowledge of driving skills or bad attitudes towards driving?
Was he under the influence of alcohol or drugs when he was driving?
Are there laws against this and resources to enforce it?
What are the community expectations or attitudes towards driving?
Does he have a good social support network that will help in his recovery
or prevent this from happening again? Was the road he was driving in safe?
Was he driving a safe car that was well maintained?
If not, why not? Could he not afford it?
If not, why could he not afford it? Does he have a job that doesn’t pay well?
Why is that? Is it because
he did not have access to good education? Was there good access to health services which
would determine his treatment and recovery? As you can see from this example, health is
determined by a complex interaction between many different factors, or determinants of health.
These include individual characteristics, lifestyles and behaviours and also the
physical, social and economic environments…. These are called the social determinants of health
…In order to make a difference in health, there is action needed
across all the different determinants. Public health focuses on these upstream
factors to make changes that can benefit the health of the population as a whole.
This seems like a very broad and complex task doesn’t it??
So…who is responsible for public health? Ultimately, the responsibility of creating
a healthy community rests with all sectors of society.
Health departments do have a central role in public health…..however, improving the health
of a population requires the coordinated efforts of a broad range of stakeholders.
This includes other areas of government, the private sector,
Non-Governmental Organizations, International Organizations and communities to name a few...
…all united with a shared goal of improving the health of the public..
Now let’s have a look at how public health works…..
The World Federation of Public Health Associations has developed
a useful framework to understand how public health is delivered.
There are three core service areas of public health and a group of enablers
that ensure that these services can occur effectively and efficiently.
The three core areas of public health are: Protection, Promotion and Prevention.
Protection is about protecting the health of the population.
This includes the control of infectious diseases, managing environmental hazards, ensuring a healthy
workplace and managing health emergencies Promotion is about improving the
health of the population. It covers a broad range of
activities that not only focuses on the individual like promoting health
behaviours over a life course. It also focuses on improving the social-determinants of health.
Prevention is about preventing health issues before they occur. It includes activities
such as vaccination and screening. To enable these core areas to function
there needs to be: Good Governance….
Advocacy……to influence and obtain support and commitment for actions that support a health goal.
Capacity…. having an adequate, well-trained and supported public health workforce.
And having accurate, timely information to support health actions such as relevant research,
surveillance, monitoring and evaluation. So that’s a quick introduction to the
fascinating field of public health! We’ve had a look at what it is,
how it is different to clinical medicine, who is responsible for doing it and how it’s done!
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