Public Health

What Is Public Health?

Public Health as a field is sort of hard to define.  It basically involves making sure that all people in a society or community are provided with an environment that is healthy to live in.  Most people look to the government to provide environmental controls like water and air testing and treatment, regulations that control how factories invade the environment with smoke and toxic water run-off, and laws about products and their threats to human life and health. So public health officials do these things and also try to make sure that sufficient personnel and services are there to meet the medical needs of the residents.  Citizens have high expectations for this service.

A major tool in public health is epidemiology—the study of epidemics.  Information provided through studying epidemics of the past—like typhus, polio, yellow fever, chicken pox—and current epidemics often lead to effective treatments and immunizations.  If you’re interested in going into the health care industry and want to be able to help communities of people—look at health and illness from a global perspective—and be part of a cause, then look into Public Health.  Some jobs are Epidemiologist, Research Scientist, Health Communications Specialist, and Public Health Analyst.