Key Terms
and Concepts
While there is no consensus on essential public health
functions, the following describes the activities that are
normally associated with public health practices across
the country.
- Health surveillance – Surveillance includes collecting,
interpreting and communicating health data and then acting
on this information. It helps in the early recognition
of outbreaks, disease trends, cases of illness, and health
factors. For example, surveillance can help identify and
deal with immediate situations such as contamination of
public water supplies, and it can also be used to track
data over the longer term, such as smoking and cancer
rates.
- Health promotion – Public health practitioners
work with individuals, agencies and communities to understand
and improve the health of the population. Health promotion
includes strengthening the skills of individuals to encourage
healthy behaviours and it also includes building the healthy
social and physical environments to support these behaviours.
- Disease and injury prevention – We know that
many diseases can be prevented or delayed. There are measures
to prevent infectious diseases, and much can also be done
to prevent or delay chronic diseases, for example, by
ensuring access to healthy food and opportunities for
physical activity, and supporting smoking cessation. Many
injuries can be avoided through measures such as ensuring
safe equipment in playgrounds, and seat belt and bicycle
helmet use.
- Health protection – A long-standing core function
of public health, health protection includes ensuring
safe food and water supplies, providing advice to national
food and drug safety regulators, protecting people from
environmental threats, and having a regulatory framework
for controlling infectious diseases in place. Ensuring
proper food handling in restaurants and establishing smoke-free
bylaws are examples of health protection measures.
- Population health assessment – By understanding
the factors that influence good health and those that
create health risks, we can ensure the appropriate services
and policies are in place.
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