Public Health/Society and Culture

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Introduction[edit | edit source]

Public health is an important objective for society and public health awareness and literacy in society can help to mitigate the risk. Also cultural determinants can have an impact on public health of communities and the population.

Education and training[edit | edit source]

Education and training of public health professionals is available throughout the world in Schools of Public Health, Medical Schools, Veterinary Schools, Schools of Nursing, and Schools of Public Affairs. The training typically requires a university degree with a focus on core disciplines of biostatistics, epidemiology, health services administration, health policy, health education, behavioral science, gender issues, sexual and reproductive health, public health nutrition, and occupational and environmental health.[1][2]

In the global context, the field of public health education has evolved enormously in recent decades, supported by institutions such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank, among others. Operational structures are formulated by strategic principles, with educational and career pathways guided by competency frameworks, all requiring modulation according to local, national and global realities. It is critically important for the health of populations that nations assess their public health human resource needs and develop their ability to deliver this capacity, and not depend on other countries to supply it.[3]

Schools of public health: a US perspective[edit | edit source]

In the United States, the Welch-Rose Report of 1915[4] has been viewed as the basis for the critical movement in the history of the institutional schism between public health and medicine because it led to the establishment of schools of public health supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.[5] The report was authored by William Welch, founding dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Wickliffe Rose of the Rockefeller Foundation. The report focused more on research than practical education.[5][6] Some have blamed the Rockefeller Foundation's 1916 decision to support the establishment of schools of public health for creating the schism between public health and medicine and legitimizing the rift between medicine's laboratory investigation of the mechanisms of disease and public health's nonclinical concern with environmental and social influences on health and wellness.[5][7]

Even though schools of public health had already been established in Canada, Europe and North Africa, the United States had still maintained the traditional system of housing faculties of public health within their medical institutions. A $25,000 donation from businessman Samuel Zemurray instituted the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in 1912 conferring its first doctor of public health degree in 1914.[8][9] The Yale School of Public Health was founded by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow in 1915.[10] The Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was founded in 1916 and became an independent, degree-granting institution for research and training in public health, and the largest public health training facility in the United States.[11][12][13] By 1922, schools of public health were established at Columbia and Harvard on the Hopkins model. By 1999 there were twenty nine schools of public health in the US, enrolling around fifteen thousand students.[1][5]

Over the years, the types of students and training provided have also changed. In the beginning, students who enrolled in public health schools typically had already obtained a medical degree; public health school training was largely a second degree for medical professionals. However, in 1978, 69% of American students enrolled in public health schools had only a bachelor's degree.[1]

Degrees in public health[edit | edit source]

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is the oldest school of public health in the Anglosphere.[14]

Schools of public health offer a variety of degrees generally fall into two categories: professional or academic.[15] The two major postgraduate degrees are the Master of Public Health (MPH) or the Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH). Doctoral studies in this field include Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in a subspecialty of greater Public Health disciplines. DrPH is regarded as a professional degree and PhD as more of an academic degree.

Professional degrees are oriented towards practice in public health settings. The Master of Public Health, Doctor of Public Health, Doctor of Health Science (DHSc/DHS) and the Master of Health Care Administration are examples of degrees which are geared towards people who want careers as practitioners of public health in health departments, managed care and community-based organizations, hospitals and consulting firms, among others. Master of Public Health degrees broadly fall into two categories, those that put more emphasis on an understanding of epidemiology and statistics as the scientific basis of public health practice and those that include a more wide range of methodologies. A Master of Science of Public Health is similar to an MPH but is considered an academic degree (as opposed to a professional degree) and places more emphasis on scientific methods and research. The same distinction can be made between the DrPH and the DHSc. The DrPH is considered a professional degree and the DHSc is an academic degree.[citation needed]

Academic degrees are more oriented towards those with interests in the scientific basis of public health and preventive medicine who wish to pursue careers in research, university teaching in graduate programs, policy analysis and development, and other high-level public health positions. Examples of academic degrees are the Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Science (ScD), and Doctor of Health Science (DHSc). The doctoral programs are distinct from the MPH and other professional programs by the addition of advanced coursework and the nature and scope of a dissertation research project.

Notable people[edit | edit source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Achievements in Public Health, 1900–1999" (PDF). Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Vol. 48, no. 50. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. 24 December 1999.
  2. Public Health Agency of Canada. Canadian Public Health Workforce Core Competencies, accessed 19 April 2011.
  3. White, Franklin (2013). "The Imperative of Public Health Education: A Global Perspective". Medical Principles and Practice 22 (6): 515–529. doi:10.1159/000354198. PMID 23969636. PMC 5586806. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5586806/. 
  4. Welch, William H.; Rose, Wickliffe (1915). Institute of Hygiene: Being a report by Dr. William H. Welch and Wickliffe Rose to the General Education Board, Rockefeller Foundation (Report). pp. 660–668. reprinted in Fee, Elizabeth (1992). The Welch-Rose Report: Blueprint for Public Health Education in America. Washington, DC: Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society. http://www.deltaomega.org/documents/WelchRose.pdf. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Patel, Kant; Rushefsky, Mark E.; McFarlane, Deborah R. (2005). The Politics of Public Health in the United States. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 91. ISBN 978-0-7656-1135-2. 
  6. "Antagonism and accommodation: interpreting the relationship between public health and medicine in the United States during the 20th century". American Journal of Public Health 90 (5): 707–15. 2000. doi:10.2105/AJPH.90.5.707. PMID 10800418. PMC 1446218. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446218/. 
  7. White, Kerr L. (1991). Healing the schism: Epidemiology, medicine, and the public's health. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-97574-0. https://archive.org/details/healingschismepi00whit. 
  8. Darnell, Regna (2008). Histories of anthropology annual. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 36. ISBN 978-0-8032-6664-3. 
  9. Dyer, John Percy (1966). Tulane: the biography of a university, 1834-1965. Harper & Row. pp. 136. 
  10. Burrow, Gerard N. (2002). A history of Yale's School of Medicine: passing torches to others. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300132885. OCLC 182530966. https://archive.org/details/yalesschoolofmed00burr. 
  11. Education of the Physician: International Dimensions. Education Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates., Association of American Medical Colleges. Meeting. (1984 : Chicago, Ill), p. v.
  12. Milton Terris, "The Profession of Public Health", Conference on Education, Training, and the Future of Public Health. 22–24 March 1987. Board on Health Care Services. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, p. 53.
  13. Sheps, Cecil G. (1973). "Schools of Public Health in Transition". The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society 51 (4): 462–468. doi:10.2307/3349628. 
  14. Kar, Snehendu B. (2018-05-18). Empowerment of Women for Promoting Health and Quality of Life (in en). Oxford University Press. pp. 69. ISBN 978-0-19-938467-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=chJbDwAAQBAJ&q=London+School+of+Hygiene+and+Public+Health+oldest. 
  15. "Schools of Public Health and Public Health Programs" (PDF). Council on Education for Public Health. 11 March 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
  16. Berke, Olaf; Sobkowich, Kurtis; Bernardo, Theresa M. (2020-11-01). "Celebration day: 400th birthday of John Graunt, citizen scientist of London". Environmental Health Review 63 (3): 67–69. doi:10.5864/d2020-018. ISSN 0319-6771. 
  17. Winkelstein, Warren (July 2008). "Lemuel Shattuck: Architect of American Public Health". Epidemiology 19 (4): 634. doi:10.1097/EDE.0b013e31817307f2. ISSN 1044-3983. PMID 18552594. https://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fulltext/2008/07000/Lemuel_Shattuck__Architect_of_American_Public.21.aspx. 
  18. The Commonwealth Fund (1936). "Snow on cholera: A reprint of two paper: John Snow, M.D". The Health Officer 1 (8): 306. 
  19. Halliday, Stephen (2013). The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis. The History Press. ISBN 978-0752493787. 
  20. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24649/#:~:text=In%20the%20final%20decades%20of,and%20suspected%20they%20caused%20anthrax.
  21. Lakhtakia, Ritu (2014). "The Legacy of Robert Koch: Surmise, search, substantiate". Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal 14 (1): e37–41. doi:10.12816/0003334. PMID 24516751. PMC 3916274. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3916274/. 
  22. https://history.info/on-this-day/1843-robert-koch-man-saved-millions-lives/
  23. Beitsch, Leslie M.; Yeager, Valerie A.; Moran, John (18 March 2015). "Deciphering the Imperative: Translating Public Health Quality Improvement into Organizational Performance Management Gains". Annual Review of Public Health 36 (1): 273–287. doi:10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122810. PMID 25494050. 
  24. Parry, Manon S. (April 2006). "Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945)". American Journal of Public Health 96 (4): 620–621. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.079145. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 1470556. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470556/. 
  25. Mackie, Elizabeth M; Scott Wilson, T. (12 November 1994). "Obituary N.I.Wattie". British Medical Journal 309: 1297. 
  26. Asimov, Nanette (1 September 2005). "Ruth Huenemann – pioneer in study of childhood obesity". Hearts Newspapers. SF Gate. Retrieved 7 September 2022.
  27. "Mangalurean doctor's pilot project helps bring down malnutrition in Yelburga". The Times of India. 2023-08-27. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2023-09-23.