1.Prevent epidemics and the spread of
disease.
2.Protect against environmental hazards.
3.Prevent injuries.
4.Promote and encourage healthy behaviors.
5.Respond to disasters and assist
communities in recovery.
6.Assure the quality and accessibility of
health services.
These
are the fundamental obligation of agencies responsible for population-based
health.These
responsibilities describe and define the function of public health in assuring
the availability of quality health services. Both distinct from and
encompassing clinical services, public health’s role is to assure the
conditions necessary for people to live healthy lives, through community-wide
prevention and protection programs.
How Public Health
Serves (The Practice of Public Health)
Public health serves communities
and individuals within them by providing an array of essential services. Many
of these services are invisible to the public. Typically, the public only
becomes aware of the need for public health services when a problem develops
(e.g., an epidemic occurs). The practice of public health becomes the list
of "essential services."
ASSURANCE
•Enforce
laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety: This service involves full enforcement of sanitary
codes, especially in the food industry; full protection of drinking water
supplies; enforcement of clean air standards; timely follow-up of hazards,
preventable injuries, and exposure-related diseases identified in occupational
and community settings; monitoring quality of medical services (e.g.
laboratory, nursing homes, and home health care); and timely review of new
drug, biologic, and medical device applications.
•Link
people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health
care when otherwise unavailable: This service (often referred to
as "outreach" or "enabling" services) includes assuring
effective entry for socially disadvantaged people into a coordinated system of
clinical care; culturally and linguistically appropriate materials and staff to
assure linkage to services for special population groups; ongoing "care
management"; transportation services; targeted health information to high
risk population groups; and technical assistance for effective worksite health
promotion/disease prevention programs.
•Assure
a competent public and personal health care workforce: This service includes education and training for
personnel to meet the needs for public and personal health service; efficient
processes for licensure of professionals and certification of facilities with
regular verification and inspection follow-up; adoption of continuous quality
improvement and life-long learning within all licensure and certification
programs; active partnerships with professional training programs to assure
community-relevant learning experiences for all students; and continuing education
in management and leadership development programs for those charged with
administrative/executive roles.
•Evaluate
effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based
health services: This service calls for ongoing
evaluation of health programs, based on analysis of health status and service
utilization data, to assess program effectiveness and to provide information
necessary for allocating resources and reshaping programs.
•Research
for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems: This service includes continuous linkage with
appropriate institutions of higher learning and research and an internal
capacity to mount timely epidemiologic and economic analyses and conduct needed
health services research.
ASSESSMENT
•Monitor
health status to identify and solve community health problems: This service includes accurate diagnosis of the
community’s health status; identification of threats to health and assessment
of health service needs; timely collection, analysis, and publication of
information on access, utilization, costs, and outcomes of personal health
services; attention to the vital statistics and health status of
specific-groups that are at higher risk than the total population; and
collaboration to manage integrated information systems with private providers
and health benefit plans.
•Diagnose
and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community: This service includes epidemiologic identification of
emerging health threats; public health laboratory capability using modern
technology to conduct rapid screening and high volume testing; active
infectious disease epidemiology programs; and technical capacity for
epidemiologic investigation of disease outbreaks and patterns of chronic
disease and injury.
POLICY DEVELOPMENT
•Inform,
educate, and empower people about health issues:
This service involves social marketing and targeted media public communication;
providing accessible health information resources at community levels; active
collaboration with personal health care providers to reinforce health promotion
messages and programs; and joint health education programs with schools,
churches, and worksites.
•Mobilize
community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems: This service involves convening and facilitating
community groups and associations, including those not typically considered to
be health-related, in undertaking defined preventive, screening,
rehabilitation, and support programs; and skilled coalition-building ability in
order to draw upon the full range of potential human and material resources in
the cause of community health.
•Develop
policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts: This service requires leadership development at all
levels of public health; systematic community-level and state-level planning
for health improvement in all jurisdictions; development and tracking of
measurable health objectives as a part of continuous quality improvement
strategies; joint evaluation with the medical health care system to define
consistent policy regarding prevention and treatment services; and development
of codes, regulations and legislation to guide the practice of public health.
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