Public health

There may not be enough trained healthcare workers, monetary resources, or, in some cases, sufficient knowledge to provide even a basic level of medical care and disease prevention.

Developed nations are at greater risk of certain public health crises, including childhood obesity, although overweight populations in low- and middle-income countries are catching up.

[9][10] In complex, pre-industrialized societies, interventions designed to reduce health risks could be the initiative of different stakeholders, such as army generals, the clergy or rulers.

Great Britain became a leader in the development of public health initiatives, beginning in the 19th century, due to the fact that it was the first modern urban nation worldwide.

[11] Common public health initiatives include promotion of hand-washing and breastfeeding, delivery of vaccinations, suicide prevention, smoking cessation, obesity education, increasing healthcare accessibility and distribution of condoms to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Medical doctors, Petr Shkrabanek and James McCormick wrote a series of publications on this topic in the late 1980s and early 1990s criticizing the UK's the Health of The Nation campaign.

[26]: 8 [25]: 7 [27]: 81 When public health initiatives began to emerge in England in modern times (18th century onwards) there were three core strands of public health which were all related to statecraft: Supply of clean water and sanitation (for example London sewerage system); control of infectious diseases (including vaccination and quarantine); an evolving infrastructure of various sciences, e.g. statistics, microbiology, epidemiology, sciences of engineering.

[30] In a June 2010 editorial in the medical journal The Lancet, the authors opined that "The fact that type 2 diabetes, a largely preventable disorder, has reached epidemic proportion is a public health humiliation.

[33] Many public health programs are increasingly dedicating attention and resources to the issue of obesity, with objectives to address the underlying causes including healthy diet and physical exercise.

Through a combination of powerful visuals, persuasive storytelling, and relatable messaging, the "Truth" campaign successfully reduced smoking rates among teenagers and young adults.

There may not be enough trained health workers, monetary resources or, in some cases, sufficient knowledge to provide even a basic level of medical care and disease prevention.

The upstream drivers such as environment, education, employment, income, food security, housing, social inclusion and many others effect the distribution of health between and within populations and are often shaped by policy.

[9][10] Definitions of health as well as methods to pursue it differed according to the medical, religious and natural-philosophical ideas groups held, the resources they had, and the changing circumstances in which they lived.

[88][89] Western European, Byzantine and Islamicate civilizations, which generally adopted a Hippocratic, Galenic or humoral medical system, fostered preventive programs as well.

[90][91][92][93] These were developed on the basis of evaluating the quality of local climates, including topography, wind conditions and exposure to the sun, and the properties and availability of water and food, for both humans and nonhuman animals.

[94][95][96] This was crucial, since under Galenism bodily constitutions were thought to be heavily shaped by their material environments, so their balance required specific regimens as they traveled during different seasons and between climate zones.

For instance, in Greek and Roman antiquity, army generals learned to provide for soldiers' wellbeing, including off the battlefield, where most combatants died prior to the twentieth century.

[100][101] In Christian monasteries across the Eastern Mediterranean and western Europe since at least the fifth century CE, monks and nuns pursued strict but balanced regimens, including nutritious diets, developed explicitly to extend their lives.

In numerous sites the upkeep of infrastructures, including roads, canals and marketplaces, as well as zoning policies, were introduced explicitly to preserve residents' health.

Medical practitioners, including public physicians,[109] collaborated with urban governments in predicting and preparing for calamities and identifying and isolating people perceived as lepers, a disease with strong moral connotations.

[110][111] Neighborhoods were also active in safeguarding local people's health, by monitoring at-risk sites near them and taking appropriate social and legal action against artisanal polluters and neglectful owners of animals.

Religious institutions, individuals and charitable organizations in both Islam and Christianity likewise promoted moral and physical wellbeing by endowing urban amenities such as wells, fountains, schools and bridges, also in the service of pilgrims.

James Lind's discovery of the causes of scurvy amongst sailors and its mitigation via the introduction of fruit on lengthy voyages was published in 1754 and led to the adoption of this idea by the Royal Navy.

[129] Efforts were also made to promulgate health matters to the broader public; in 1752 the British physician Sir John Pringle published Observations on the Diseases of the Army in Camp and Garrison, in which he advocated for the importance of adequate ventilation in the military barracks and the provision of latrines for the soldiers.

[132][133] The Poor Law Commission reported in 1838 that "the expenditures necessary to the adoption and maintenance of measures of prevention would ultimately amount to less than the cost of the disease now constantly engendered".

[134] Its formation followed the 1843 establishment of the Health of Towns Commission, chaired by Sir Edwin Chadwick, which produced a series of reports on poor and insanitary conditions in British cities.

[145][146] With the pioneering work in bacteriology of French chemist Louis Pasteur and German scientist Robert Koch, methods for isolating the bacteria responsible for a given disease and vaccines for remedy were developed at the turn of the 20th century.

Operational structures are formulated by strategic principles, with educational and career pathways guided by competency frameworks, all requiring modulation according to local, national and global realities.

[156] The report was authored by William Welch, founding dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Wickliffe Rose of the Rockefeller Foundation.

[185] In the absence of a vaccine, mosquito control, or access to anti-malaria medication, public health methods become the main strategy for reducing the prevalence and severity of malaria.