Public Health
Just as each family is composed of individual
members who together form a unit, so each community is
made up of all the families and homes within its
boundaries. A community has a legal and moral
responsibility to develop measures for the conservation
and promotion of the well-being of its citizens. It is
therefore in all the families of the city, village, or
rural area. Read complete chapter:
Public Health
Federal Health Agencies
Health activities of the federal government are
carried on chiefly by or under the supervision of the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This
department coordinates and directs all federal health
and welfare activities. Since 1953 the administrator has
been a member of the President’s Cabinet, with the title
of Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Read
complete section:
Federal Health
Agencies
State Health Departments
Every state has a state health department, with its
authority vested in the power of the state to enact
legislation for public safety and health. The local
units of government with in the state have only those
powers that are granted to them by the state. Read
complete section:
Federal Health
Agencies
Local Health Departments
The local health department is the agency created by
town, city, or county government to preserve and protect
the public health. It is supported by local and state
taxes or by grant of money from federal funds, and its
activities are supervised by a group of local citizens
of a community for services and the moral and financial
citizens of a community for services and the moral and
financial citizens of a community for services and the
moral and financial support they are willing to provide
largely determine the quality and quantity of local
health services. Also necessary are local action and
understanding of the needs of the community. Read
complete section:
Local Health
Departments
Voluntary Heath Agencies
In nearly every community there are nongovernmental
or voluntary agencies that supplement the work of the
health department. The voluntary public health agency is
as American as apple pie. It is typical of the character
of the county and of people helping people in trouble. A
review of the history of American voluntary agencies
usually reveals that each was started to meet a special
need of a group of people. In pioneer days the greatest
concern of such agencies was to care for the sick and
for the indigent. When the founding fathers of the
United States made no constitutional provision for a
department to provide for the public’s health, it was
the voluntary agency that first filled this gap. Read
complete section:
Voluntary
Health Agencies
International Health Agencies
Rapid means of travel from one part of the world to
another has brought special recognition to the need for
international health agencies. Contagion does not
recognize national boundaries, and since certain less
frequently encountered diseases, such as plague and
yellow fever, exist at all times in some place in the
world, there must be international concern for health
and agencies that are prepared to cooperate in the
eradication and control of disease. Read
complete section:
International health Agencies
See also:
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