Public Health in practice Flashcards
What is public health?
The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life through the organised efforts of society
What are the 3+ pillars of public health?
Health improvement - NHS focus
Health services -
Health protection
Applied Epi or health intelligence
How is public health involved in health improvement?
- Inequalities
Education
Housing
Employment
Family/community
Lifestyles
Surveillance and monitoring of specific diseases/risk factors
How is public health involved in health services?
Clinical effectiveness
Efficiency
Service planning
Audit and evaluation
Clinical governanace
Equity in access
What is involved in health protection?
Infectious diseases
Chemicals, poisons, radiation
Emergency response
Environmental health hazards
Screening
What are the science aspects of public health?
Epidemiology
Statistics
Health economics
What is intersectionality?
a concept for understanding how aspects of a person’s identities combine to create different and multiple discrimination and priveledge
e.g. multiple statistics apply to them so douvle effect
What are health inequalities?
Unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population, and between different groups within society
What are factors of health inequality?
Socioeconomic factors - education, employment, community safety, income, family
Physical environment - housing, access to greenspace, air quality
Lifestyle factors - diet and physical activity, alcohol use
Health Care - access to good quality healthcare services, experience of care
What are causes of the causes?
Situations out of people’s control that often lead to lifestyle factors that increase risk of the disease
Can link into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - before stopping smoking need to stop stress a bout housing, unemployment, support network
What are the main determinants of health?
Age, sex, constitutional factors
- Individual lifestyle factors
- Social and community networks
- Living and working conditions
General socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions
- these 3 easier for public health to change
What are some of the differences between clinical medicine and public health?
Populations instead of individuals
More holistic approach
Work across organisational boundaries
Can have much longer timescales than clinical medicine
What are the different levels of the NHS?
Top
National Bodies
ICS/regional level
Local/place level
Service providers
