It's National Public Health Week. Rather than just changing my Facebook profile pic or posting pix of the Empire State Building lit up in "team colors," I think awareness months and weeks should be used to educate people about the topic, not just reminding everyone that something exists. (That's right all you blue-lit Empire State Bldg people with the puzzle piece profile pix, I'm looking at you.) So, what is public health?
First, I'll tell you what it's not. It's not about your personal health. It's not about what goes on between you and your doctor, pharmacist, or insurance company. We don't have records of that. We don't want records of that. It's none of our business. I understand that you want your childhood medical records and your pediatrician closed up shop 20 years ago, but we simply do not have these things. The government isn't nearly as Big Brotherish as some would lead you to believe.
Public health is about health issues that affect groups of people. Environmental issues with drinking water or air pollution. WIC subsidies for poor women who are pregnant or have young children. Free cancer screenings for those who don't have insurance or can't afford to pay. Health fairs. Health education campaigns. (You know all the quit smoking stuff you've seen over the years? That's public health.) Restaurant, hospital, and nursing home inspections. Newborn biomedical and hearing screening. Public safety. Public policy.
Public health is about making changes and providing services that affect entire communities, not just one person. Even programs like WIC and cancer detection programs that benefit individuals, also benefit the community as a whole by preventing bigger health care burdens down the road. Early intervention programs for children with special needs, newborn biomedical screening for inborn errors in metabolism and other congenital problems, and newborn hearing screening to detect and address hearing problems at the earliest stage also benefit the community as a whole by attempting to give children the extra help they need long before they enter the school system.
In addition to providing specific services like education, screening, testing, detection, and inspections, public health workers also analyze aggregate data to help policymakers make decisions based on data trends and comparisons between different groups of people to see where help is and isn't needed so that scarce public funds are funneled in the right direction. Data are used to track disease outbreaks. Data are used to study the effectiveness of programs and policies on the population as a whole. Leading causes of death are determined by statisticians in state health departments and in the National Center for Health Statistics. Infant death, low birth weight and preterm birth percentages, and teen birth rates are all produced by public health departments.
Public health is large-scale and often long-term surveys of health-related behaviors. Public health sets childhood growth chart standards and determines the BMI cut-offs between normal weight and overweight and between overweight and obese. Public health is about using traumatic brain injury data to push for bicycle helmet and seat belt laws. Public health is bioterrorism and natural disaster preparedness and response. Public health is about lead and mold and other household things that can cause illness. Public health is about asbestos and bloodborne infectious diseases and other occupational hazards. Public health is immunizations to prevent the spread of communicable diseases and tracking and treating outbreaks when and if they do occur.
Public health is about all that and more. I know a lot of people, myself included at times, like to come down on government and government employees. We're sometimes portrayed as lazy, ignorant, and overpaid. We're often confused with elected officials when people are poo-pooing "government." Government employees are not elected. We acquire and hold jobs just like people in the private sector. The only difference is that everyone is privy to our salaries, our spending, and our mission, so they don't see how private companies squander money for their own profit. But I digress.
Public health, in my opinion, is a noble profession. We're not in it for profit or glory. Our only mission is to help people with the one thing that we all have and need to maintain: our health. Rich, poor, male, female, old, young, white, black, green, purple, we have health (hopefully good health) and we all need to maintain it in order to live long, happy lives. As Count Rugen says in The Princess Bride, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."
For more information on National Public Health Week: http://www.nphw.org/
For more on the American Public Health Association: http://apha.org/
To learn more about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/
The CDC is the public health branch of the US Dept of Health and Human Services.
