The Meaning of Public Health

Handbook on Training of the Faculty of public health Medicine (1992) defines public health as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and improving health through the organized efforts of society," and the medical treatment of the public as the "branch of the practice of medicine with public health specialization." This field is primarily related to health and disease in populations, complementing the clinical treatment that is specific to the individual patient's health. Its main responsibility is to monitor the health of the population, identification of health needs, helping to improve health policy and evaluate health services.

The basic science of public health is epidemiology. Epidemiology helps us understand the factors that affect health and disease, and the incidence of various factors that cause disease in a population and groups. This helps us to decide what actionshould be taken to prevent the disease and maintain health, for example, throughhealth education, social policy, behavior modification, immunization, screening in the early identification of those at high risk for or need care and special protectionagainst the specific environment is dangerous.

On the whole of society, public health always serves learning the nature and spread of disease and disability in a population, as well as determine how the association with age and gender, socio-economic conditions, employment and the environment. So public health will determine health needs in a certain area, set priorities and provide the services needed. In addition, of course, very important to evaluatehow the effectiveness of the service in the community, in treatment, care, the extent of the suffering, maintain the capacity to work, rehabilitation of the disabled, as well as lowering the death rate and birth rate. That also required is assess how efficiently services are used in a given community and, particularly, to determine how much it will cost.

Public health activities will vary in different parts of the world. In underdeveloped regions most will pay attention to the care of the environmental factors, improved sanitation, increased water supplies, improved housing, and reduction of infectious diseases and the chain of life, e.g. malaria, tipes, diarrhea. They also will try to find out the causes of the causes of malnutrition, infant mortality, and figure out how best to repair it, for example, through dietary changes, changes in patterns of maternal and child care and advocated the granting of breast milk and also birth control.

In developing countries this public health issue is somewhat different. The main cause of illness and death are likely to be associated with chronic diseases such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, motor vehicle accidents. Public health will seek to determine the method and size are suitable for the needs of this cartilage, on the State of misabya the suggestion not to constantly smoking, development of effective policies to reduce fat in the diet, reduce air pollution, through the introduction of service detection of cancer cerfix and lungs, and the method of identification of its own in the early stages of a disease.

However, the most important aspect of the Western public health policy now is related to the development of methods of influence behaviours and attitudes that are known to cause the disease. In addition, it also involves the determination of the need for health care for the population, for example, in areas with a large number of old age then the Ministry will further take precedence on seniors than younger people, so it will require nursing home and rehabilitation services rather than on-site obstetrics. Determine the effectiveness of the services provided is also important, for example, the case of the failure of heart surgery, a hip replacement and others. Furthermore, there will be needs guidance according to priorities such as between curative services, rehabilitation and prevention.

In the United Kingdom, public health is part of the National Health Service, and there are public health Director with staff in every region, who are responsible for reporting the health of the population each year and paying attention to the shortage of medical services and the problem of death. They therefore play an important role in the fight against the disease. A good institutional model has been adopted inother places. In other countries the influence of public health are more spread out.

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