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Public Health: Now More Than Ever. The Core Functions of Public Health. Assessment Assurance Policy Development. The Ten Essential Services of Public Health. Monitor health status to identify community health problems
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The Core Functions of Public Health • Assessment • Assurance • Policy Development
The Ten Essential Services of Public Health • 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
Definitions • Health Disparity - Statistical differences in health status that occur among population groups defined by specific characteristics. • Health Inequalities - Generic term used to designate differences, variations, and disparities in the health status and risk factors of individuals and groups that may be due to any cause or random variation. • Health Inequity - Inequalities in health that are avoidable, unfair or stemming from some form of injustice. • Health Equity - Fair and equal access to the conditions for good health. • Social Determinants of Health - The economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals and communities and determine the extent to which a person possesses the physical, social, and personal resources to identify and achieve personal aspirations, satisfy needs, and cope with the environment. These include but are not limited to: conditions for early childhood development; education, employment, and work; food security, health services, housing, income, and income distribution; social exclusion; the social safety net; and unemployment and job security. (Adapted from Dennis Raphael)
Once upon a time the people living in a village by a river began noticing bodies floating downstream.
One of the townspeople was assigned the job of diving in and rescuing them.
…a huge crowd of townspeople were spending most of their days and nights jumping in the river and pulling out the drowning people.
One day one of the townspeople just stopped and turned around and started walking upstream.
Some people were trying to cross the river on a bridge, but it had a hole in it and they fell through!
Some people had to live so close to the river bank that when it flooded they got washed away!
When you are poor and the flood’s at your door You know you’ll probably go – downstream
Bodies are floatin’ ‘cause the bridges are broken So you’re sure to go - downstream
Us people down the river will try valiantly to rescue The bodies floating down the stream, we know it’s what we must do…… But we are tired…..
The bodies keep floating down, there are so many more daily, and more of them drown
So we go upstream – that’s where the problems are Upstream – prevention is not too far
Sister Public Health became deathly ill with diarrhea and wasn’t expected to live.
Why? • Because. • Why? • Because. • Why? • Because. • Why? • Because…
…and began designing a neighborhood with healthy housing and clean water and sewage systems…
His Sister Public Health survived, thanks to the help of some nice nurses who came to visit her…
…to save their friends and families from the suffering caused by the infections that are spread when people don’t have clean, healthy places to live or to work.
During the Great Depression they even took a trip to New Mexico.
…a special program called “WPA” – to help wipe out malaria in Rio Arriba, Mora, Santa Fe, Sierra and Doña Ana counties.
They got to help with the WPA Sanitary Privy Project that built thousands and thousands of healthy outhouses.
…designing better roads so that people wouldn’t die in accidents so much
Sister Public Health got really fascinated with the new wonders of medicine – things like antibiotics…
…fewer and fewer of those pesky infectious diseases killing people
A lot more people who were sick from things they didn’t actually “catch” from other people.
And once they got sick, it lasted a long time, sometimes the rest of their whole life.
So even if people were living longer, they were living sicker.
She realized that they couldn’t eat the good food she kept telling them to eat because they didn’t have enough money.
…and instead of grocery stores, their neighborhood was filled with McDonald’s and Allsup’s mini-marts.
The neighborhood was run-down and dreary with not a park in sight and no kids out playing.
There was no sidewalk and it made her never want to walk there again.
He had meanwhile become quite occupied with super-highways and fancy housing developments with shopping malls out in the suburbs.
…how much healthier and happier people had been in those old neighborhoods.
…and the families could eat together almost every night because the moms and dads didn’t have to work two jobs each to make enough money to pay the rent.
