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.

The state of well-being of the commu8nity is known as public health. Experience has shown that to achieve successful community health protection there must be organized efforts toward disease prevention and health promotion. There must be trained public health workers, adequate funds to carry out a program, and favorable public opinion toward the goals of health officials. There must be a sanitary code that guarantees a clean, safe, and sanitary environment in the community. There also must be laws and regulations to implement the control and prevention of communicable disease. Education of the individuals who compose the community is the foundation of community health. When people understand the importance of health they are willing to build the social structure necessary to provide health protection for the community.

In the United States as in many other countries, the health of the people is primarily an individual responsibility. What the individual or the family does to promote its own health is the most important action in the protection of the health of the entire community. While advancement in personal health is an individual matter, behavior that is harmful to the public’s health or that result in additional burden and expense to the public is a matter of general concern. Government has the legal and moral responsibility to protect the health and well-being of the nation’s citizens. To meet this responsibility, the government has developed the of a local health department in a small town to that of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The job of these agencies is to spread knowledge of the cause, prevention, and cure of disease, both chronic and acute, to all individuals in coping with their own health problems.

To know how public health agencies are organized and how they operate it is necessary to understand two underlying principles of public health administration. First, the official health department has a direct responsibility to protect the health of the people. As communities grow in size and population, certain features of public health work require collective or official action that I beyond the ability or the means of the individual. For example, the maintenance of a safe public water supply and the assurance of a pure milk supply are problems too big for any one person to solve. Other features of public health work, such as the control of communicable diseases, require direct and full cooperation between public authorities and private individuals. The health officer or the private physician cannot prevent poliomyelitis or diphtheria unless parents cooperate by having their babies and young children protected.

The second broad principle to be understood is the inherent right of government to establish rules to protect the health of the community against an individual who presents a health hazard to the group. The use of quarantine or of arrest for health violations is enforced under the laws and regulations that apply this principle to protecting the public’s health. For example, a patient with active tuberculosis can be compelled to accept hospitalization for the protection of his family and his neighbors. Typhoid carriers can be prevented form accepting employment as food handlers because of the danger they would be to the health of many people.

The second broad principle to be understood is the inherent right of government to establish rules to protect the health of community against an individual who presents a health hazard to the group. The use of quarantine or of arrest for health violations is enforced under the laws and regulations that apply this principle to protecting the public’s heath. For example, a patient with active tuberculosis can be compelled to accept hospitalization for the protection of his family and his neighbors. Typhoid carriers can be prevented from accepting employment as food handlers because of the danger they would be to the health of many people.

In general terms, the federal government has authority and responsibility in three broad areas of public health: a general concern for the health of the people of the nation; the prevention of the spread of disease from one state to another; and the prevention of the spread of disease from one state to another; and the prevention of the introduction of disease from outside the United States. To carry out these responsibilities, the government studies national and international health problems and conducts studies and research on the incidence, transmission, and prevention of diseases. It helps control the transmission of disease from state to state by regulating the movement of infected person, animals and goods, particularly foods and drug. Quarantine stations to control the entrance of disease from abroad are located at all international seaports and airports. Before goods or people may enter the country, they must have health clearance by the port authorities.

When states need health guidance and assistance from the federal government this help may be given in a variety of ways. Some states have insufficient funds to provide a satisfactory health program without federal aid in the form of grants of money. Some states have unusual disease problems, such as malaria, occupational disease, or industrial pollution problems, and need the assistance of expert personnel with special training. What these experts do to help depends on the circumstances. They may act as consultants in planning programs, train local health personnel on the job, or actually work as additional heath personnel on assistance to the states is to raise standards and to strengthen the departments of health so they can gradually assume all responsibility for and ongoing public health program that will meet the needs of the people.