Community Newsletter

Community Newsletter

NAME

HCS/457

February 25, 2019

Public health is promoting and protecting the wellbeing of people and the community. “Public health, the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental health, sanitation, personal hygiene, control of infectious diseases, and organization of health services” (“Public Health,” 2018). One of the main purposes of public health is to prevent individuals from getting sick or injured. Public health accomplishes prevention of sickness or injury by educating the community on possible outbreaks or health conditions that can affect the people and ways that they can avoid the spread. One method that is used by public health is vaccinating individuals in order to prevent the spread or contamination of a disease. Another purpose of the public health is to set safety standards to ensure safety and nutritional programs to ensure children have access to healthy foods (American Public Health Association, 2019).

Back in the Middle Ages, the control of communicable diseases and the safety of the community was controlled and created by public officials where in order to treat these diseases came up with a sanitary control system. This sanitary system was the first attempt made in public health. Throughout the Renaissance era, the community was still in charge of handling any public health matter within their community because there were still no policies established for health protection and prevention. In Europe and the United States, public health awareness became known in the 1800s and continued developing and progressing. Hospitals were founded and were rapidly growing, and the government started taking action in public health. Public health was mainly for the military population but due to outbreaks such as smallpox, cholera, yellow fever and other infectious epidemics, the focus began to change to the general population because they had to put a stop to the spread of these diseases (“Keck School of Medicine Of USC”, 2019). Laws such as The Poor Law Commission of 1834 were created to find and treat any health problems in the community. In the 1900s, public health began advancing by using immunizations, setting safety standards such as OSHA in 1970 to ensure employee safety and lower work-related injuries and fatalities. Along with the progress there have been setbacks such as not having enough resources, improper environmental sanitation, or inability to communicate ways to disease prevention and treatment. One example would be geographical areas where poverty is very high and health resources are not available.

Furthermore, public health continued advancing in the 20th century through the development of health agencies, health educational programs, occupational health programs, public health nurses and community health care such as the welfare of mothers and children. In 1948 the organization known as World Health Organization or WHO came about and worked on promoting health and disease prevention, nutrition and safety. The World Health Organization not only educates on disease or health problems in the community but throughout the world.

One career within public health is a public health information officer. According to “Careers in Public Health.net”(2019), “a public health information officer is the public face of a government agency, large public institution, hospital, university, or municipal department” (Public Health Information Officer). They’re commonly the individual who is seen conveying data to the media or the general population amid times of wellbeing emergency. Another career within public health is vaccine researcher in which they study, develop, monitor, modify vaccines and the overall vaccine usage safety. A third career within public health is a public health nurse. A public health nurse works with the entire community and educates the people.

References

American Public Health Association (2019). Retrieved from https://www.apha.org/what-is-public-health

Careers in Public Health.net(2019). Retrieved from https://www.careersinpublichealth.net/careers/public-health-information-officer/

Keck School of Medicine of USC (2019). Retrieved from https://mphdegree.usc.edu/blog/how-public-health-has-evolved/