04-Public Health Flashcards
What is the purpose of Public Health?
1) It promotes and protects people’s health and the communities where they live, learn, work, and play.
2) Public health prevents people from getting sick or injured in the first place.
3) It works to track disease outbreaks, prevent injuries, and understand disparities in health outcomes
What are examples of public health activities?
Conducting research
Vaccinating people and animals
Substance use education
Setting safety standards
Developing nutrition programs
Should we try to change the behaviours of individuals in public health?
This is a debated concern; when and in what way is it acceptable to attempt to change behaviours
paternalism vs. autonomy
How can we indirectly change behaviours that cause negative health outcomes?
Disease and illness are largely attributable to the choices people make so we can attempt to indirectly affect these choices by doing the following:
Rewarding and supporting “good” choices (child tax benefit to help promote births)
Punishing and taxing “bad” choices (sin taxes disincentivize people from consuming substances)
What is the effect of media on health choices?
Confirm and re-enforce certain notions about drinking, smoking, and drug taking. The media commonly counteracts health promoting messages that threaten profitable, but unhealthy choices.
How can public health measures intervene to change behaviour?
Educate: when a lack of information is inhibiting individuals from behaving in their own best interests. This type of intervention is the least invasive and offers the most autonomy. (tell people using cell phones while driving is dangerous)
Engineer: (re)design or manipulate the environment to reduce risk and avoid harm to societal members. (more twin highways help improve safety by separating different flows of traffic, and this increases survival for distracted drivers)
Enforce: make rules and regulations regarding individual and collective behaviours (fines for distracted driving)
When is it acceptable for public health to intervene?
1) Individuals through their action or inaction are likely to adversely affect others (Mill’s Harm Principle)
2) Individuals are being misled or subject to inappropriate persuasion (not allowing advertising for cigarettes in setting where children are likely to see it)
3) Individuals indicate a desire to change but have difficulty doing so on their own
What is health promotion?
Health promotion is the process that enables individuals, families, and communities to increase control of their lives, and improve their health.
What are the health promotion strategies outlined in the Ottawa Charter?
Build healthy public policy
Create supportive environments
Strengthen community action
Develop personal skills
Re-orient health services
What are some health-promoting public policies?
Legislation (acceptable behaviours)
Fiscal measures (public funding)
Taxation ((dis)incentives)
Organizational change (Advance prevention policies vs emergency care)
How can we create supportive environments?
Promote the development of walking trails and livable cities. This helps make downtime more enjoyable and more likely to fulfill higher levels of satisfaction.
How do we strengthen community action?
Give communities greater control over priorities, decision-making, planning, and implementation. This requires full and continuous access to information and funding.
How can we develop personal skills?
Provide information and education for health and enhancement of skills. We also need to increase the options available to people so they can exercise greater control over their own health.
How can we reorient the health care system?
Health system reform objectives:
Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care system. Assess why we do things, eliminate unnecessary processes, and do things that actually have an effect.
Increased partnership among the providers and users of health services. Team-based and other collaborative models of care; increasing emphasis on patient-centred care.
Why should the health care system focus on the needs of the elderly?
More individuals to experience more chronic disease and longer periods of diminished vigour
If not addressed, need for medical and social services will increase substantially over the next few years.
Enhance the capacity of those with disability to cope to reduce the need for specialized (expensive) assistance
