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What is public health?

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Public health is a branch of health care that specifically deals with the health of the population as a whole; focusing on hygiene, epidemiology and disease prevention.

The aim of public health is to protect and improve the health of the population and their communities. The populations can vary in size. Research is done to target populations who are at risk or currently experiencing unsafe issues. Public health combats these concerns through promoting healthy lifestyles, disease and injury prevention research, and detecting, researching and responding to infectious diseases. These objectives are met when public health professionals implement educational programs, recommend policies, administering services while also conducting research. Even though public health professionals don’t treat patients in the same way as doctors or nurses they aim to limit health disparities by promoting healthcare equity, quality and accessibility.

Federal Initiatives for Public Health

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The initiatives can be found on the CDC website at:

https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/strategy/index.html

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Alzheimer’s Disease

 

 

Chronic Disease

 

 

Cross-Cutting Topics

 

 

Emergency Preparedness & Response

 

 

Environmental Health

 

 

Health Disparities

 

 

Health IT

 

 

Healthcare Quality

 

 

Heart Disease & Stroke

 

 

Immunization/Vaccination

 

 

Infectious Disease

 

 

Injury & Violence Prevention (Child Safety, Highway Safety, Occupational Safety, Suicide, Violence)

 

 

Reproductive Health

 

 

Smoking & Tobacco Use

 

 

Workforce

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Photo credit: Foutain and Warren County Health Department

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Photo Credit: Federal News Network

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Photo Credit: American Heart Association

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Photo Credit: Trinity Health

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Photo Credit: 

www.whealth.com

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Photo credit: Lola Koktysh

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Photo credit: www.cdc.gov

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Photo credit: Thinkstock

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Photo Credit: Kaiser Health News

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Photo Credit: Photostock

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Photo Cerdit: World Health Organization

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Poht Credit: CDC

Photo Cerdit: EHS Today

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State of Washington Initiatives

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The state of Washington has a plan for 9 specific areas of public health.

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1. Healthy starts

2. Sexual and reproductive health

3. Tobacco and substance abuse prevention

4. Active and safe environments

5. Healthy eating

 6. Screening, referral and follow-up

7. Social and emotional wellness

8. Quality clinical and preventive treatment services

9. Health equity

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The PDF file for the full plan can be found here:

https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/Pubs/140-073-WAStatePlanForHealthyCommunities.pdf

Public Health Funding

Where does the funding for public health come from? 

Public health funding comes from federal sources, state sources, local sources, fees and fines. According to the CDC, “Health departments generally receive the largest percentage of their federal revenue from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Environmental Protection.” (cdc.gov) Partnerships between the government and non-for-profit health care organizations are important and according to Sultz and Young, “ In 2011 not-for-profit organizations received 32 percent of $6 billion distributed by state health agencies through contracts, grants, and awards.” Funding for public health has been and continues to be an issue in the US. Sultz and Young state that less than 3 cents per $1 that is spent on health care goes into public health funding causing a shortage on funding in this health care domain. In the following chart it shows the breakdown of where funds are contributed for all states with a total obligation of $6,134,759,508.

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A closer look at how and where funding comes from can be seen here in this pdf from the CDC website. 

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https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/docs/finance/Public_Health_Financing-6-17-13.pdf

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A World Without Public Health

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A world without public health would result in expensive after-the-fact medical interventions, progressively growing epidemics that could turn to pandemics, higher mortality rate in many areas, and no policy to regulate the environments we live and work in. Many advancements were made during the 2000s that have contributed to lowering the mortality rate for many diseases. According to Sultz and Young, “Many new vaccines were introduced including rotavirus, meningococcal, herpes zoster, pneumococcal, and papillomavirus. A 2011 economic analysis on the use of vaccines reported that vaccination of each U.S. birth cohort using the current childhood immunization schedule prevents approximately 42,000 deaths and 20 million cases of disease, with net cost savings of nearly $14 billion in direct costs and $69 billion in total societal costs.” That is just some things that have happened in our time. Think about the bubonic plague which was also known as the black plague or black death. Public streets were infested with trash and fecal matter due to lack of better ways to dispose of it. If advancements such as plumbing, and trash collection or disposal didn’t exist would the black plague still be an issue today? We can also look at areas of pubic health such as regulating fire arms, the work place, tobacco use and health codes in buildings and restaurants. The mortality rate of gun shot wounds would increase as well as injury and illness due to lack of regulating our environments in which we live and work.

Resources

Bishop, N., Macklin, A., Robelotto, D., Tolchinsky, A., Saka, B., & Waters, R. (n.d.). What is Public Health? Retrieved from https://www.cdcfoundation.org/what-public-health.

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CDC - National Health Initiatives, Strategies, and Action Plans - STLT Gateway. (2018, October 4). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/strategy/index.html.

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Colton, T., Galea, S., & Brooks, D. (n.d.). A World without Public Health: SPH: Boston University. Retrieved from https://www.bu.edu/sph/2016/01/03/a-world-without-public-health/.

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Norc University, An Examination of Public Health Financing in the United States
 
Final Report, March 2013, https://www.norc.org/PDFs/PH%20Financing%20Report%20-%20Final.pdf

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Prevention and Public Health Fund. (2018, July 13). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/funding/pphf/index.html.

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Sultz, H. A., & Young, K. M. (2014). Health care Usa: understanding its organization and delivery. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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The Washington State Plan for Healthy Communities, March 2014, https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/Pubs/140-073-WAStatePlanForHealthyCommunities.pdf

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