We are public health

So most of you know that I work for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.  I've been there for about 5 1/2 years now and have had a number of different working titles and responsibilities along the way.  I'm learning the more I work in this industry that the average person really has no idea how inclusive public health is or what many of us do.

So what is public health?

Before I go into my explanations I want all of you readers to answer this question for yourselves.

Go ahead, take a minute to really think about it.  .  .

I'll wait. . .


. . . You can even type it into the comment box if you'd like (I love to hear what others' perceptions are, no judgement, I promise, it's actually quite a learning experience for me to realize how members of the general public perceive public health and gets the wheels turning on how I need to explain myself and my work in order to truly partner with people and agencies that are outside of my little bubble.

Let me start by saying that usually if I tell people I work for the department of public health, they either think I do restaurant inspections, immunizations, or a vague "oh, so you. . . teach people to be healthy".  Well the first two are certainly not the case for my specific job, but the third one is getting there, although I must say that if I take the time to really explain my job it still surprises most people, not because what I do is so radical or amazing, but simply because most of the world doesn't realize what public health is, so hearing about what I do is a surprising realization.

So what is public health?  Well the most accepted official definition (which is also listed in wikipedia) says "Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals".  

This video explains it much more quickly than I could type it out. . .



So, what have I learned about public health having gotten a degree and now worked in the field for 5+ years?  Well like the video points out, public health is all around us, it's often the things that we take most for granted, and "healthcare" or "sick-care" is a very small part of it.  Public Health is at it's heart, preventative, meaning we try to create environments and build systems that limit the spread of disease.  I sat through a presentation recently where they asked what the greatest health advancement was in history.  Many people would think it would be the discovery of penicillin, or the invention of vaccines, but actually if you look at trends in disease and health of the population through time, it's clear that the invention of modern sewage systems did more for curbing disease and improving population health than anything since.  This is why so much time and money is still spent in developing nations to build facilities and access to clean water.  It's by far the most important thing we can do.

Here in the developed world however, we take our clean water and functioning sanitation systems as a given, so public health priorities are a bit different, but the principle is still the same, which leads me into my explanation of what I do:

I work with organizations like worksites, healthcare systems, schools and community organizations to create policies and practices that provide healthier environments.  We work with these entities to make changes that will make the healthy choice the easy choice.  I could go into more detail, and might in a future post, but to stick to my purpose on this one, let's just say that the "public health system" encompasses just about everything and everybody and I'm one of the few in it who actually is paid to look at the system and try to improve it, kind of a cool job.  I'm lucky to work in an office that is really focusing on the environmental approaches to chronic disease prevention. So while we do very little by way of direct education to the public, we have a big impact by improving the environment around you, because when all is said and done, I am public health, you are public health, we are public health.