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What is Public Health?

What is Public Health?. © www.drcath.net 2011. What is Public Health?. “The science and art of promoting health and preventing disease through the organised efforts and choices of society”. What is Public Health?. Public health is about improving and maintaining the health of populations.

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What is Public Health?

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  1. What is Public Health? © www.drcath.net 2011

  2. What is Public Health? “The science and art of promoting health and preventing disease through the organised efforts and choices of society”

  3. What is Public Health? • Public health is about improving and maintaining the health of populations. • Population are our patients! • It is a multidisciplinary field • Public Health Specialists (e.g. public health doctors, health protection teams, public health managers) • Academics • They provide the knowledge base, teach public health skills and examine provision of health services • Health workers who do public health work as part of their jobs)

  4. ClinicalMedicine Individuals Diagnosis Treatment/cure Alleviating pain One-to-one work PublicHealth Populations Prevention of disease Health promotion Protection from hazards Improving quality of life Evaluating health services Community Action Twins but Different

  5. Determinants of Health Dahlgren G and Whitehead M. 1991.

  6. Areas of Public Health • Health Intelligence • Health Improvement • Health promotion • Reducing Inequalities in health (‘upstream factors’) • Health Protection • Communicable diseases (e.g. pandemic flu) • Chemical Incidents • Bioterrorism • Improving quality of health services for the public

  7. Local Public Health Specialist Teams Provide: • Knowledge Management • i.e. evidence with appropriateness • Health Intelligence • Taking a system’s overview • Partnership Working

  8. Day-to-Day • Surveillance and assessment of the population's health and well-being • Public health intelligence • Assessing the evidence of effectiveness of health and healthcare interventions, programmes and services • Policy and strategy development and implementation (lead in developing local health strategies) • Leadership and collaborative working for health (developing links and networks, working as part of local strategic partnership)

  9. Day-to-Day • Health improvement • Preventative medicine (screening & vaccination) • Health protection and emergency planning • Service improvement & support the commissioning of a full range of services for local population • Research & development

  10. Public Health Approach • Identify and categorise problem using surveillance procedures • Determine risk and protective factors that can be used to reduce overall prevalence of the problem • Use this knowledge to develop and test interventions • Continuation of efforts to implement interventions with high fidelity

  11. You have read that breastfeeding rates are low in UK compared to the rest of Europe. Talking to health visitors, it looks like rates are considerably lower here. How do you do something about this? You have seen the 4th elderly patient this week with low vitamin D deficiency levels. This is very unusual. What do you do? Over to You….

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