What is Public Health?

Definitions

What is Public Health from the Association of Schools of Public Health

"Public health carries out its mission through organized, interdisciplinary efforts that address the physical, mental and environmental health concerns of communities and populations at risk for disease and injury." This web site includes information on the five core areas of public health, as well as other fields of public health and the population approach to public health.

What is Public Health Practice?

whatispublichealth.org (ASPH's What is Public Health? Web site)

"Public Health is the science and the art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of the social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health."

from C E A Winslow, The Untilled Fields of Public Health, Science 51(1306): 23-33 (Jan. 9, 1920)

The mission of public health is "the fullfillment of society's interest in assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy."
The substance of public health is "organized community efforts aimed at the prevention of disease and the promotion of health."
The organizational framework of public health "encompasses both activities undertaken within the formal structure of government and the associated efforts of private and voluntary organizations and individuals."

from The Future of Public Health, Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press, 1988.

"Together, the [Surgeon General's] reports of the past four decades have expanded the very meaning of public health. They show that the definition of public health is not fixed but has changed over time, and changed the practice of medicine, as well, to include areas such as human behavior and mental health. That fact has broad implications for our understanding of health and risk, personal pleasure and social norms, science and moral standards, and individual freedoms and public policy."

from The Reports of the Surgeon General: Changing Conceptions of Public Health

The Ten Essential Public Health Functions:

• Monitor health status to identify community health problems
• Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community
• Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues
• Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve health problems
• Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts
• Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety
• Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable
• Assure a competent public health and personal health care workforce
• Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services
• Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems

from the Public Health Functions Steering Committee, 1994. See the Public Health in America web site for more information on the Public Health Functions Project.

The Essential Services of Public Health (American Public Health Association)

This web site provides an expanded explanation of each of the ten essential services - the what and how of public health. "Public health serves communities and individuals within them by providing an array of essential services. Many of these services are invisible to the public. Typically, the public only becomes aware of the need for public health services when a problem develops (e.g., an epidemic occurs)."

The Core Competencies for Providing Essential Public Health Services

This is a list of each of the Ten Essential Public Health Functions, with the professional competencies associated with each. From the Council on Linkages between Academia and Public Health Practice.

Ten Great Public Health Achievements -- United States, 1900-1999:

• Vaccination
• Motor-vehicle safety
• Safer workplaces
• Control of infectious diseases
• Decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke
• Safer and healthier foods
• Healthier mothers and babies
• Family planning
• Fluoridation of drinking water
• Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard

(from CDC, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report)

The Public Health Workforce

Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21st Century (2003, Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Science)

"The extent to which we are able to make additional improvements in the health of the public depends, in large part, upon the quality and preparednenss of the public health workforce, which is, in turn, dependent upon the relevance and quality of its education and training. This report examines an essential component of the public health workforce - public health professionals."