The phrase 'prevention is better than cure' is the basis of the career,
public health. Public Health is the science and practice of protecting
and improving the health of communities through education, promotion of
healthy lifestyles, and research for disease and injury prevention. In
other words, Public health deals with prevention and control of diseases,
and involves researching and educating population to help prevent or manage
health issues that impact all or many people in that population. The field
focuses on protecting entire communities or populations, rather than the
individual. These population can be as small as a local city or as big
as an entire country. Overall the goal of public health is to improve
lives through prevention, control and treatment of diseases, and developing
methods to prevent the reoccurrence of health issues by implementing policies
and educational programs.
Public health includes environmental, social, behavioral, and occupational
health. It is most commonly associated with prevention or control of infectious
diseases, but it may also include genetic diseases and disorders, as well
as the effects of natural disasters, accidents, and acts of terrorism
or bio-terrorism.
Public health professionals monitor and evaluate the health needs of
entire communities, promote healthy practices and behaviors, and work
to identify and eliminate environmental hazards to assure that populations
stay healthy. Public health is a diverse and dynamic field in the sense
that these practitioners come from varying educational backgrounds: medicine,
nursing, business, epidemiology, law, biology, economics, nutrition, social
work, environmental science, health education and behavior sciences etc.
Nevertheless, they share the common goal of preventing disease at the
population level. They are involved in a diverse set of activities and
work to protect the environment, identify sources of illness in population
groups, control disease outbreaks, evaluate the economic impacts of changing
demographics, develop media campaigns and education programs on hygiene
and sanitation to promote healthy behavior, produce health policy legislation
and monitoring environmental hazards.
If you have an interest in science subjects and have a mind to serve
the society, career in public health is the way for you. For such candidates,
public health is a rewarding and satisfying career avenue. The field offer
great personal accomplishment as you work toward improving people's health
and welfare of the community. Spirit of serving others and hard work is
required for a successful career in Public health. Public health professionals
may serve local, national or international communities.
Public health career is such a field which offers something for everyone.
Specialties in the field such as Biostatistics (the theory and application
of statistical science to analyze public health problems) and Epidemiology
(study of patterns of health and illness and associated factors at the
population level) are based on mathematics and modeling, while environmental
health incorporates wide range of science skills. Health administration
includes business as well as management skills; and health education,
requires skills to expand community wide prevention programs. In health
policy sector, you should understand law-making processes easily.
