Medical Safety & Global Health
Open Access

Characteristics and Components for Development of Public Health

Rashid Malik^{* *}Correspondence: Rashid Malik, Department of Medical Sciences, Gauhati University, Assam, India, Email:

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Description

Public health works to advance the general welfare of the population, protect it from environmental risks, infectious disease transmission, and other threats, and ensures that all members of the community have access to safe and effective medical care.

The definition of public health is "the science and art of avoiding disease," which includes extending life expectancy and increasing quality of life through coordinated efforts and deliberate decisions made by the public and private sectors, as well as by communities, families, and people.

The public can be as tiny as a few individuals or as big as a whole village or city. Physical, psychological, and social well-being are all considered under the idea of health. As such, according to the World Health Organization, "health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Purposes

A public health intervention aims to prevent and lessen illnesses, accidents, and other health issues. The overarching objective is to raise life expectancy and improve population health.

Characteristics and components

A complex concept with numerous components and much behaviour is public health. It is a multidisciplinary field with several facets. For instance, epidemiology, biostatistics, social sciences, and health services administration are all pertinent. Other significant subfields include workplace safety, disability, gender issues in health, sexual and reproductive health, environmental health, community health, behavioural health, health economics, public policy, mental health, and health education and politics.

In today's practise, multidisciplinary teams of public health workers and specialists are required. Epidemiologists, biostatisticians, medical microbiologists, pharmacists, public health nurses, midwives, economists, sociologists, geneticists, data managers, environmental health officers (public health inspectors), bioethicists, gender experts, sexual and reproductive health specialists, physicians, and veterinarians may make up teams.

Public health's components and priorities have changed over time and are still changing. Public health issues might fluctuate from one area of the world to another at any particular time. Common public health measures include encouraging breastfeeding and hand-washing, administering immunizations, educating about obesity and smoking cessation, boosting access to healthcare, and distributing condoms to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted illnesses.

The promotion of healthy behaviours, communities, and environments helps achieve public health objectives. Public health is the study of the factors that affect a population's health and the dangers it faces.

Simple, non-medical measures can successfully prevent a wide range of diseases. For instance, studies have shown that doing a quick hand wash with soap helps stop the spread of a variety of dangerous diseases. In other situations, such as during an outbreak of an infectious disease or through tainted food or water supplies, treating a disease or infection might be essential to preventing its spread to others. Examples of typical preventive public health interventions include condom distribution programmes, immunisation campaigns, and public health communications campaigns.

In addition to public health, the overall health care system of a country also comprises primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care. In order to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases, many public health initiatives, such as checking food safety, providing condoms, and managing needle-exchange programmes, are carried out outside of medical facilities.

Public health makes a substantial contribution to the fight against disease in both developed and developing countries through local health systems and non-governmental organizations. The geographic components of risk, susceptibility, and exposure necessitate the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).