Hello everyone! Let’s talk about public health.
Some of you may already know, but this is a topic I’m quite interested in. During undergrad, I minored in public health, and as of June, I’m currently working on my master’s degree in this subject. And although I’m currently learning a lot about public health and hope to continue learning more, I know that not everyone understands what it is and why it’s important for a functioning society, country, and ultimately a better world.
So, before we get into the specifics, what actually is public health?
What is Public Health?
The CDC describes public health as “the science of protecting and improving the health of communities and individuals.” The goal is to prevent disease, prolong life, and promote health, and this effort requires change at both the policy, community, organizational, and individual levels. The focus with public health is on the population opposed to the medical field’s focus on the individual patient. Both strategies are necessary and fundamental to a thriving community, yet I’m just more interested in the public health side of things.
Those working in the public health field do things like promote healthy lifestyles, research disease and injury prevention alongside a host of other health concerns, respond to infectious disease, help with emergency preparedness and disaster relief, and work to promote health equity. Public health is multifaceted and offers a lot of different career paths. These are just a few common ways public health professionals work to make the world a better and safer place to be.
In essence, public health is a broad field dedicated to improving the overall health and well-being of populations through a wide range of strategies and interventions. It involves assessing community health needs, designing policies to improve health outcomes, and ensuring access to essential healthcare services.
Pillars of Public Health
As I mentioned, public health is a broad field and consists of many elements and subgroups. The main pillars of public health are health promotion, disease prevention, disease control, environmental health, and emergency preparedness and relief. I’ll go into deeper detail on these subgroups below.
Health Promotion
Health promotion is a core component of public health and involves empowering communities and individuals to take control of their health. It goes beyond individual behavior and requires intervention at the social and environmental levels. Health promotion aims to create supportive environments, implement public health policies to improve health outcomes, prevent disease, strengthen community action, and foster healthier lifestyles.
Examples of health promotion include health education campaigns that provide information about healthy eating, physical activity, and disease prevention; community-based programs focusing on specific health needs; policy changes that promote healthy behaviors, such as smoke-free policies; and creating healthy workplaces.
Disease Prevention and Control
Disease prevention and control are both fundamental to a healthy and thriving community. These pillars of public health aim to reduce the incidence and impact of illness and disease through proactive measures. The goal of this pillar of public health is to prevent diseases before they occur through methods such as vaccination and health education. Other methods of disease control and prevention include early detection and treatment, such as cancer screenings, and managing complications of existing diseases, such as with rehabilitation programs.
Disease control and prevention strategies include things like public health campaigns that promote hygiene and handwashing, and isolation or quarantine during infectious disease outbreaks.
The disease prevention aspect of public health aims to stop a problem from happening by getting ahead of it. To fix the problem before it happens. Disease control, on the other hand, is trying to reduce the harmful impacts of an issue that has already occurred or is still persisting.
Environmental Health
The environmental component of public health focuses on how the environment affects human health. It involves identifying, evaluating, and addressing exposures to environmental hazards that have negative consequences on human health. The goal is to ensure safe air, water, food, and living and working conditions.
People are healthier when the environment around them is healthier. This means good air and water quality, limited exposure to pollutants and toxic chemicals, safe and quality food, effectively managed hazardous waste sites, and policies in place to address and combat climate change.
This pillar of public health in practice looks like monitoring and surveillance for environmental hazards, working with communities to identify and address environmental health concerns, developing and implementing policies to address environmental hazards and limit the public’s exposure, and finally providing information to the public about environmental health risks and how to reduce them.
Emergency Preparedness and Relief
The final pillar of public health I’m going to mention is emergency preparedness and relief. This component of public health involves ensuring coordinated responses to natural disasters, threats, and other emergencies. Planning, prevention, response, and recovery efforts make up this dimension of public health. The goal is to minimize the impact of emergencies on the health of communities.
Like all other aspects of public health, this requires intervention and planning at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Some examples of emergency preparedness and relief include the National Response Framework (NRF), the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program (PHEP), the national standards set by the CDC for emergency response and preparedness, emergency operations centers (EOC), including community members in the planning and response efforts, dispersing timely and accurate information in the case of a disaster, regular training for disaster situations, and collaboration with various agencies to ensure a coordinated emergency response.
Public Health Infrastructure
Okay, so now that we know what public health is and the dimensions that make up this occupation, let’s briefly talk about the importance of public health infrastructure.
Public health infrastructure is essentially the systems, personnel, resources, structures, and facilities available within a community that work to maintain and improve population health. In simpler terms, it is like the foundation of a house. A strong foundation thus supports the health of a population.
Public health infrastructure includes things like hospitals, healthcare facilities, surveillance systems, laboratories, and emergency response systems. All of which need adequate funding and resources for communities to be at their healthiest. And unfortunately, that’s not always easy to attain. And let me tell you, the current administration in this country sure as hell isn’t making it any easier. But I digress.
Anyway, epidemiologists, health educators, policymakers, emergency management teams, and scientists are all examples of personnel who build up a solid public health infrastructure.
A great example of public health infrastructure is the CDC—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, because they monitor and respond to public health threats on an international scale.
The Social Determinants of Health
The next piece of public health that I’m going to speak on is the social determinants of health. This is essentially the driving force behind all public health systems, interventions, policies, and goals. For those who haven’t heard of this concept before, the social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, live, work, and age that influence health outcomes. This includes things such as income levels, job security, education, access and affordability of healthcare, safe housing, and clean environments.
Change is made by addressing the social determinants of health and improving health equity. This approach also reduces the disparities seen in health outcomes between different communities.
Health Equity
Another major component of public health is health equity and health disparities. In essence, a major goal of public health is to reduce, if not eliminate, health inequalities and disparities.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, health equity is the fundamental belief that health is a human right and therefore everyone is entitled to achieving their full potential of health and wellbeing. It’s about leveling the playing field in the game of health. Health shouldn’t be dependent on income, status, education, or opportunity. Yet in this country, it very much is. Health equity is more important now than ever as it ensures people have the opportunity to achieve optimal health regardless of their background, circumstances, socioeconomic status, or other factors.
Health equity works to address health disparities. Health disparities are the differences in health outcomes between different groups of people that are linked to gender, race, income, socioeconomic status, education, geography, or other factors. Common examples of this would be those living in rural areas having less access to healthcare, or the fact that maternal mortality rates are higher amongst black women in the U.S compared to white women.
Solving the issues linked to health disparities can be a challenge and involves addressing the many underlying causes of such disparities. It is not a battle that can be won in a day, and that’s for sure. But the push to expand access to affordable and quality healthcare and to address systemic biases in medical treatment is a great way to start.
Global Health
Another major part of public health and the work done in this field involves global health. Global health is all about addressing the health issues that cross borders, such as climate change or infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS. In simple terms, it’s like teamwork on an international scale to address shared health challenges. Pandemics and chronic diseases are both key issues that require international cooperation and therefore fall into the category of global health.
Many global health organizations work to coordinate these efforts, the main one being the World Health Organization (WHO). The work they do is vital for public health as it strengthens responses to disease threats.
Research
Like any health-related field, research is a big part of public health. Public health aims to improve the health of communities and populations, and research is a part of discovering the factors that influence our health and well-being. When we better understand what influences our health and how it influences our health, more effective interventions, policies, and practices can be implemented. With the goal being promoting health and preventing disease, understanding disease patterns, risk factors, and the social determinants of health can be beneficial in informing policies and interventions as well.
Health Policy
Policies, laws, initiatives, campaigns, and funding are essential elements of public health. Without laws and policies, there is no way to actively enforce the positive behaviors that will improve health outcomes at the population level. Policy shapes the whole public health system because it essentially sets the standards for our health and well-being.
Examples of public health policies that help reduce negative health outcomes include tobacco control policies such as smoking bans and higher taxes on cigarettes. Similarly, climate change policies can address environmental health risks to help improve health outcomes. More examples of public health policies include Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which expanded health care access in the U.S., and the anti-tobacco campaigns that reduced smoking rates on a global scale. Policy is such an important part of public health because it can address systemic issues and improve population health on a large scale. In essence, they serve as a roadmap that guides societies towards better health outcomes.
Current Issues in Public Health
The last thing I’m going to touch on is current issues in public health. I just selected a few to highlight, yet there is a much wider variety of ongoing concerns in the field of public health. You can read more about those here.
Vaccines
Vaccination is a highly effective public health intervention that saves millions of lives annually. Globally, it is estimated that vaccines have averted 154 million deaths within the past 50 years, most of which have been children. Vaccines help people and populations stay healthy by protecting us from serious diseases. However, there has recently been a decline in the percentage of children receiving necessary vaccines due to safety concerns, religious or personal beliefs, or lack of awareness and information. Social media and misinformation have fueled much of this hesitation for parents to vaccinate their children.
Concern about the ingredients, the autism-vaccine myth, fear of side effects, the belief that vaccines are “unnatural interventions”, distrust in healthcare systems, difficulties assessing information, lack of information, financial barriers, and lack of access to healthcare are the most common causes of the recent decline in vaccinations in America. Therefore, working to address these barriers and concerns by providing useful and accurate information, building community trust, and increasing access and affordability of healthcare for all remains an important goal to work towards in the field of public health.
Mental Health
Mental health is a critical public health issue. The treatment and prevention of mental health conditions, as well as the promotion of well-being, are all attained through highly effective and functional public health programs and interventions. There must be a public health approach to mental health concerns because such a substantial portion of the population struggles with their mental health. Further, mental health is interconnected with physical health as well as the other dimensions of wellness, and with the goal of public health being to get everyone to their highest potential of well-being, tackling the mental health issue is a critical concern.
Mental health also falls under the umbrella of public health because it can be tied to the social determinants of health. Socioeconomic status, education, healthcare access, and social support all influence mental well-being. Public health policies, initiatives, and campaigns can work to address these social determinants to foster a healthy, thriving community that promotes positive mental health outcomes.
With prevention being a major component of public health, identifying and addressing risk factors of mental illness and further promoting protective factors is an effective way to address the issue and optimize community health outcomes. Initiatives that encourage positive social connections, teach coping skills, increase resources, reduce stigma, and increase access to support services are all effective ways to address the issue. With the recognition that mental illness is a public health issue, there can be steps taken to create healthier communities in which everyone has the opportunity to thrive and feel healthy.
Climate change
This one may ruffle the conservative feathers, but yes, climate change is a serious problem. A critical public health concern in today’s world. Rising temperatures disrupt the interconnected systems in our environments, which in turn affect our own health. Our health and the health of the environment are very much connected. And with catastrophic environmental conditions come detrimental consequences to population health.
Climate change effects we can see, such as extreme heat, severe storms, air pollution, wildfires, and the spread of mosquito and tick-borne illnesses, threaten both the physical and mental health of all communities. Therefore, intervention at the policy level to transition to renewable energy, improve energy efficiency, create sustainable methods of transportation and land management, strengthen climate agreements, and introduce methods of carbon capture and storage will be essential in addressing this critical public health issue.
Healthcare costs
The incredibly high and increasing healthcare costs are a significant public health issue in America. High costs lead to delays in seeking treatment and receiving care, financial strain, and increased mortality. This issue impacts everyone, especially the uninsured and those living in low-income households. There is also a great burden on the economy due to these increasing costs. Further, a bulk of healthcare costs are spent on treating preventable diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and lung cancer. This simple fact highlights the need for a greater investment in public health initiatives.
Substance abuse
Substance abuse is a serious public health challenge. It includes the misuse of illegal drugs and the overuse of legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol.
In 2024, over 8,000 people died from overdosing on prescription opioids in the U.S., and roughly 88,000 die annually from alcohol related injuries, making it the third most common preventable cause of death in the United States.
Aside from the harm substance abuse does to families and communities, it also puts a lot of strain on the economy. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that it costs the United States $232 billion in health care costs and $740 billion overall.
Nutrition
The last public health concern I’m going to brief you on today is nutrition. This includes things such as inadequate, excessive, or imbalanced food intake. Nutrition is a critical component of public health because it heavily influences the state of our health. Inadequate nutrition can lead to chronic diseases, malnutrition, and other health conditions. Under the umbrella of nutrition, there are several areas of concern, such as food insecurity, diet-related chronic conditions, and micronutrient deficiencies.
Nutrition also heavily coincides with public health because the availability and affordability of healthy food options, as well as the marketing and promotion of unhealthy foods, can influence dietary decisions and contribute to ongoing public health problems. Similarly, the social determinants of health, such as poverty, access to healthcare, and income, will impact nutritional status and contribute to health disparities.
Addressing issues related to nutrition requires some public health intervention such as the promotion of healthy eating habits, improving access to healthy and affordable foods, addressing food insecurity through programs such as SNAP and WIC, regulating the marketing and labeling of unhealthy foods, educating the public about healthy nutrition, addressing the social determinants of health, and strengthening food safety systems.
Closing
Holy Mother of God. Now that’s a long blog post. And if you read it, I thank you for your time and interest. As you may be able to see, public health is really something that interests me. I’m currently in a master’s program to fuel that passion, learn more, and hopefully one day work towards a healthier world.
Once again, thanks for being here. Til next week.