Agenda | Abstracts | Speakers | What is Public Health? | Research | Conclusions

What is Public Health?

Public health is a field charged with a mission to organize interdisciplinary efforts to address the physical, mental, and environmental health concerns of communities and populations at risk for disease and injury. While public health is comprised of many professional disciplines such as medicine, dentistry, nursing, optometry, nutrition, social work, environmental sciences, health education, health services administration, and the behavioral sciences, its activities focus on entire populations rather than on individual patients. The implementation of health promotion and disease prevention programs designed to improve and enhance quality of life at the population level distinguishes public health from clinical health professions. Public health professionals monitor and diagnose the health concerns of entire communities and promote healthy practices and behaviors at the population level.

Examples of essential public health services include the following:

• Monitoring health status to identify community health problems.

• Informing and educate people about health issues.

• Identifying and solve health problems in communities.

• Evaluating effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services.

• Conducting research to find new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.

This population-based approach to health shapes the core of public health activities. Examples of such activities are:

• Working with communities to improve mental health and to reduce substance abuse and social violence.

• Reducing death and disability due to unintentional injuries through the formulation of policies designed to protect the safety of the public.

• Increasing the safety of drinking water, food, and the ambient environment.

• Promoting healthy lifestyles to prevent chronic diseases such as cancer, hearth disease, and obesity.

• Educating populations at risk to reduce the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, and infant mortality.

• Evaluating the effectiveness of clinical and community-based interventions.

• Eradicating life threatening diseases such as smallpox and polio.

• Controlling and preventing infectious diseases and outbreaks.

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