The Broad Sphere Of Public Health Essay
Public health is a healthy state of people and their communities in the places where they live, work, learn and play. Doctors deal with different kind of illnesses, while specialists, who work in the sphere of public health put their effort trying to prevent different health problems, including sickness and injuries. Different researches, performed in the field of public health aim to find out different ways, which can help people stay healthy. As American Public Health Association (APHA) points out, “From conducting scientific research to educating about health, people in the field of public health work to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. That can mean vaccinating children and adults to prevent the spread of disease. Or educating people about the risks of alcohol and tobacco” (What is Public Health?).The Broad Sphere Of Public Health Essay Public health is also preoccupied with such questions, as safety at the work place. It cares about safety norms and standards, which help people save their lives and stay healthy. Public health is also concerned with nutrition in different social organizations, including schools. In addition, public health investigates infections outbreaks. It studies different reasons, which cause poor health. People who get low wages often make their best to earn their living, but they constantly fail because poverty affects all spheres of their lives and they cannot escape from this trap. Bad living conditions, bad food and bad working conditions, which often accompany poverty, result in worse health conditions. Such problems as malnourishment and hard working conditions result in different kinds of health problems. People with low-income are more inclined to different kind of chronic diseases, infections, stress and emotional problems. Even children from poor families may suffer because of not enough quantity of quality food. According to the studies, cited in the chapter, about 11,1%, which makes about 12.1 million are classified as “food insecure”, which means that these people do not have enough food to it (Shipler 2004). This investigation illustrates how living conditions influence public health. The results of different researches in this field result in legislative initiatives, which aim to improve public health. Such legislative initiative as prohibition to smoke in public places or use of seatbelts belong to public health. The World Health Organization developed basic functions for public health care. These functions include: partnership in the emergency cases, research and accumulation of valuable knowledge on public health, developments different healthcare norms and standards and control over their implementation, monitoring health situation. The Broad Sphere Of Public Health Essay
Strategies, used in public health are used rather for population in general, than for particular individuals. Investigation of ancient settlements illustrates that ancient people suffered from different kinds of diseases and bad life conditions. At the same time, little information is known about public health in ancient times. The most widespread public health measure was isolation of ill people and entire settlements during different pandemics. A lot of people died during different epidemics. Not keeping elementary sanitary norms made the situation significantly worse. Starting from the 18th century people started paying attention to global health tendencies in the health sphere. Private initiative in health care finally resulted in legislative initiatives, which were implemented in order to protect public health. This legislative initiatives became the first step in the sphere of public health. Public Health Act, implemented in 1848 became the first step, which defined general sanity norms and regulations. Later initiatives derived from this first effort. Vaccination became another important public health measure, which helped to stop epidemics and decrease the death rate. Industrial revolution brought new challenges, since rapid industrial development resulted in worsened life conditions and injuries at the work place. The state and different organizations had to develop an adequate reaction to new challenges.The Broad Sphere Of Public Health Essay Finally, new legislative regulations enabled to take the situation under control. Employment laws were designed to guarantee all working people normal working conditions and to protect their health and safety. Wages and Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Occupation Safety and Health Act (OSHA) became important regulations, because they make important contribution in protecting employees’ rights. Major part of the employees can get protection according to FLSA. It can be applied to “employees who are engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or who are employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce” (Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938). The Occupation Safety and Health act is a federal law. It was implemented in 1970 in order to make sure that employers make everything possible to create safe working conditions for their employees. The OSHA is designed in a way to minimize risks, which occur at the work place. This initiative is especially important for the production which contains risk factors, such as high noise level, hot or cold temperatures, mechanical damages, poor sanitary conditions. The act established the department responsible for the following regulation introduced by this legislative initiative.
Public health is a broad sphere, which covers a lot of different fields, which help to save people’s lives and health. Different careers present different fields of public health. Health and safety engineer is a profession, which was designed to create safe products in safe working conditions. This profession is widely used in different scientific and technological services. The Broad Sphere Of Public Health EssayHealthcare administrator is another career in the sphere of public health. Healthcare administrators work in hospitals and clinics and their main function is to coordinate healthcare services.
Epidemiologists also work in public health sphere. The study reasons, peculiarities and other important characteristics of different epidemics. They collect information in order to develop effective means to stop or prevent different epidemics.
Environmental scientists study how environmental conditions influence human health and provide a study, which shows different aspects of influence.The Broad Sphere Of Public Health Essay