Compare And Contrast Public Health And Social Psychology

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In this essay I contrast and compare community psychology and public health approaches to social problems. I accomplish this by introducing the concepts of community psychology and public health with regards to their historical discourses and development and I contrast and compare the approaches of these concepts in terms of different models associated with them such as; mental health and social action models from community psychology, biomedical and psycho-socio-ecological models from public health. I conclude this essay by highlighting main aspects discussed within it.

2. Historical Discourses of Community Psychology and Public Health.
2.1 History of community psychology.

Community psychology originated from periphery psychologists questioning the ethnocentric nature of mainstream psychology (Albee, G. 1995). According
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In public health there have been four reform movements that developed it into what it is today: sanitary science, social medicine and community health. The sanitary science movement was established in 1850, up until after world war one. Sanitary science came into being because of problems with the distribution of human waste (). Concrete laws were established to control and govern its distribution and to an extent, govern human behavior.
The social medicine movement was from the 1930’s up until the mid-1950’s. This movement introduced the idea of taking responsibility for one’s own health. Family was seen as essential because of their constant supervision of one another, ensuring healthy behavior. The community health movement marks the shift from the Universalist approach (generalization of people) to the relativistic position of community (taking culture, indigenous ideals and practices into account). This movement had been established since the mid 1980’s and arose due to community health limitations. It is centered on the premise of a holistic understanding of the individual and the

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