HISTORY AND ACHIEVENTS OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health revolves around threats to mental as well as the physical condition based on the population analysis. In the year 1920, Public Health was defined by an American Public Health leader Charles Edward Winslow as a science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organized effort and informed choice of society, organization, public and private communities and individuals. Winslow’s definition became the basis of World Health Organization’s definition for health. It stated that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not necessarily absence of disease or infinity. This discipline is further divided into sub areas such as; Occupational Safety, Behavioral Health, Environmental Health, Physiology, Psychology, Epidemiology. Statistics and Data was important in Public Health as it was used in analyzing populations and helped bring down health threats an d disasters. The Royal Statistical Society was organized in 1834. In 1839, Lempel Shattuck and Edward Jarvis organized the American Statistical Society on Boston. Statistical data was tabulated and formatted making it easier to interpret and analyze. It was also easier to collect reused data presented in such organized ways.
Philosophy is a significant aspect in the field of Public Health. It brings a deeper and better understanding of the discipline. For instance, long ago, conditions which were connected to dark forces are now evidently believed to be coursed by viruses and bacteria. Philosophy provides links to go about such like problems in Science. It is difficult to handle a chain of Public Health related issues without employing aspects of philosophy. Public health has a mission to provide perfect health to a whole community. As Shattuck stated, it has a goal to ensure that perfect health is to be provided be it on personal level or on communal level. Public Health is based on various values. The core values include; equity, affordability, social justice, accessibility, acceptability, efficiency, effectiveness and participation. Equity refers to provision of a fair share to the community or a population. Public Health also portrays itself as a social responsibility as it involves the community as a whole. For instance, people come together to provide sensitization and mobilization on various health issues. Vaccination is a good example of such efforts. Public Health services such be accessible to the public and hence the value, accessibility. Services provided should be provided in a manner showing dire effectiveness and in ways that are socially acceptable.
Medicine and Public Health are fields that have shown much relation both in learning and field application. In both disciplines, scientific knowledge is applied to individuals and population. This creates a window for bad and good deeds. Lines of specialization in both fields are also organized. In Public Health they are organized by analytical methods and settings. In Medicine organization is by organ systems, patient groups, etiology and various technical skills. However, there are several differences between public health and Medicine. The most distinct difference between the two is that Medicine deals with health from an individual view whereas Public Health deals with the population perspective. An individual patient is deal with in Medicine while a community is deal with in Public Health. Prevention also brings another difference in these two fields. Whereas Public Health puts an emphasis in prevention of disease, Medicine focuses on treatment. However, Medical practitioners also practice disease prevention. This is evident where a doctor quits cigarette to protect his or her patient from respiratory related complications. While Public Health provides public service directly featuring a population, Medicine provides provision for personal service ethics concerning the patient. In Medicine, am lot of emphasis is put on medical care as compared to Public Health field which shows a broad spectrum of involvement in lifestyle of human beings, their environment and behavior. Certification also brings a lot of disparity in these disciplines. In Public Health, there is variable certification beyond professional degree while in Medicine a uniform system of certification is employed. Research in the Public Health moves between the field and the laboratory whereas in Medicine it revolves between laboratory and the patient. Population sciences and quantitative disciplines are essential features of analysis and training in Public Health while numerical sciences are increasingly essential in training in the Medicine Field.
Vaccine development and Disease eradication of diseases has marked a major milestone in Public Health. In the 1940s and ’50s, America would lose thirty five thousand children each year. Dr. Jonas Salk research gave birth to the Inactivated Polio Vaccine in 1955, which reduced Polio deaths largely. Albert Sabin’s work which was greatly supported by March of Dimes Foundation was approved in 1963. This has had a hand in the successful eradication of Polio in the United States. The Salk Polio vaccine had a routine vaccination for children. This, as estimated by the CDC, prevented over 70,000 child deaths in the past years. Economically, vaccination has been of great importance to the people. It is costly to treat a disease as compared to preventing it. Evidently, vaccination has been a major milestone in the discipline; Public Health.
References
Winslow, 1920
World Health Organization ,1948