What is Public Health?
Public health is the proactive, preventative approach to health concerns that affect a society as a whole. Public health is concerned with many facets of life, including emergency medical services, environmental health, maternal and children’s health, nutrition and wellness. Public health provides a variety of services to help ensure the health and safety of the committees in which we live. This includes but is not limited to:
• Prevents epidemics and the spread of disease
• Protects against environmental hazards
• Prevents injuries
• Promotes and encourages healthy behaviors
• Responds to disasters and assists communities in recovery
• Assures the quality and accessibility of health services
The 10 Essential Public Health Services
- Monitor health status to identify and solve community health problems
- Diagnose and Investigate health problems and health hazards to 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 healthcare when otherwise unavailable
- Assure a competent public and personal health care workforce
- Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility and quality of personal and population-based health services for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
- Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems