Quality Improvements and Domains of Public Health

Question 1

What are the 3 domains of public health?

Answer 1

1) Health protection
2) Health promotion
3) Improving health services

Question 2

What are examples of each public health domain?

Answer 2

1) Health Prot: Putting measures in place to control infectious diseases.
2) Health Prom: Interventions e.g. immunizations, smoking cessation, screening.
3) Improving: Aim to ensure that there is delivery of organised, safe and high quality services.

Question 3

“Structure, process, outcome” is a useful framework to use when carrying out evaluation of health services. Explain what is meant by “structure”.

Answer 3

Structure looks at what there is - buildings, staff, equipment. E.g. no. of ICU beds per 1000 or no. of vascular surgeons per 1000 or no. of locations screening takes place.

Question 4

When assessing the quality of health services, Maxwell’s classification lists six dimensions. What are they?

Answer 4

1) Effectiveness.
2) Efficiency.
3) Equity.
4) Accessible.
5) Acceptable.
6) Appropriate.

Question 5

Although using measures of health outcomes is desirable in evaluation of health services, there are potential limitations. Explain why it may be difficult to attribute a health outcome to the service provided?

Answer 5

1. Other factors may be involved.
2. There may be a time lag between service and outcome.
3. Large sample sizes may be needed.
4. Data may be unavailable or there may be issues with data quality.