On April 1, 2005, Georges C. Benjamin made a presentation in a seminar entitled Introduction to State Health Policy.
This is the text version of Dr. Benjamin's slide presentation. Select to access the PowerPoint® Slides (4.8 MB).
Georges C. Benjamin
Executive Director
American Public Health Association
APHA: "Working for a Healthier World"
"Public Health: Prevent, Promote, Protect"
A glass half filled with water is shown. The title slide has a picture of the speaker and the APHA logo.
A photo of John Snow's face is shown.
A water pump is shown on an old-fashioned city street.
"A public health professional is a person educated in public health or a related discipline who is employed to improve health through a population focus."
Source: IOM 2002.
A set of overlapping ovals is shown. The center oval is marked Working for a Healthier World: Assuring Conditions for Population Health. The six ovals it overlaps are marked Community, Health Care Delivery System, Employers and Business, The Media, Academics, and Government Public Health Infrastructure. The last oval is also overlapped by an oval marked Legislators.
Source: IOM 2002.
A faucet is shown suspended in the sky, pouring water onto a human's cupped hands.
The slide shows a wheel. Around the outside of a wheel, arrows point from the word Assessment to the words Policy Development to the word Assurance and back to Assessment.
The center of the wheel is divided into wedges. Beneath Assessment are a wedge marked Monitor Health and another marked Diagnose and Investigate. Beneath Policy Development are a wedge marked Inform, Educate, Empower; another marked Mobilize Community Partnerships; and another marked Develop Policies. Beneath Assurance are Enforce Laws, Link to or Provide Care, Assure Competent Workforce, and Evaluate.
At the center of the wheel is a smaller wheel, divided into seemingly random wedges collectively marked Research, with the words System Management around the outside of the smaller wheel.
Your Community U.S.A. Today
A cityscape is shown in broad daylight.
Illustrations include a sick-looking man with a tissue, a doctor giving a girl a tongue depressor, a woman in bed with a hot water bottle, and a man wrapped in a blanket with a thermometer in his mouth. Many slides from this point on have a clock icon in the corner.
"Hello. This is Dr. Phillips from Metro Hospital. I think you better sit down. Last night we admitted three unrelated patients ages 23, 44, and 79 from the emergency room with fever, muscle aches, and diarrhea. Preliminary lab tests show an infectious diarrhea. What's most interesting is that all three patients attended the same conference over the weekend with 300 other people. Not sure what's going on, but I knew you needed to know!"
Local health officer checks health department's online disease surveillance system for latest information.
A screen shot of http://mdpublichealth.org/edcp/ is shown.
A bar graph is titled Number of Cases Reported. The x-axis represents days of the week, and the y-axis represents numbers of cases. The number of cases reported continues to increase, from about 1,000 on Monday to about 2,000 on Sunday. Also shown is an ambulance.
Arrows point from a box marked Physician Report to a picture of skyscrapers marked Health Department to a computer marked Database GEPI 96 to a box marked GIS Software to a map of Maryland's counties, color coded for Baltimore City, the Northwest Area, the Baltimore Metro Area, the National Capital Area, the Southern Area, and the Eastern Shore Area.
A screen shot of a GroupWise Web Access window is shown.
Photos show two people at Web cams and one on a phone in an office.
A screen shot of http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/ is shown.
A map is shown. A composite of photos shows the work of doctors.
A screen shot of http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/news/citistat/Reports/Health020530.pdf is shown.
Epidemiologist has audio conference with counterparts in three jurisdictions.
Three State health officials have conference call.
A conference is shown with a speaker at a podium.
A health insurance claim and a lab test sample are shown.
A screen shot of http://www.cdc.gov/travel/outbreaks.htm is shown.
Public Information staff issue press release to alert media and educate public.
A screen shot of http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/publ-rel/html/nws_rel.htm is shown.
A person is shown watching a conference on TV.
Two photos show people at a conference looking at a speaker's face on TV. Another photo shows two men adjusting a set of TV monitors.
A cartoon shows a U.S. Military Cantonment in which a man labeled Health Officer threatens penned dogs labeled Typhoid, Venereal Disease, Tuberculosis, and Contagious Diseases with a club labeled Sanitation.
A rectangle is divided into jigsaw puzzle-style pieces. The centerpiece is labeled Clean Environment and shows purple liquid spilling from a city street gutter. The other pieces are Safe Water, showing a running faucet; Chronic Disease, showing an American Journal of Public Health cover that asks what if cigarette ads told the truth; Bioterrorism, showing a suspicious envelope addressed to Senator Daschle from a fourth grade class; and Safe Food, showing ground beef packages with the words Crisis Management?
A composite of photos shows smog behind a U.S. flag, people wearing masks to breathe, a mosquito, and a Commissioner of Health poster warning about influenza.
On a world map, red dots point to areas of outbreak for:
The following topics are in a box. An arrow points from the box to the list of diseases above.
Source: National vital statistics reports, 2002.
APHA: Working for a Healthier World
Practice public health? So do we. Join us.
Georges C Benjamin, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Executive Director
American Public Health Association
www.apha.org
"Public Health: Prevent, Promote, Protect"
Current as of October 2005
Internet Citation:
Public Health in America: A State and Local Perspective. Text version of a slide presentation at Introduction to State Health Policy: A Seminar for New State Legislators. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/ulp/statepolicy/benjamintxt.htm