Contribution To Public Health Practice

There are many unique contributions that the Public Health Practice makes towards improving population health. These contributions include factors such as, policies and programs in order to change health determinants, which in return will improve population health. The public health approach differs from the medical approach in a few ways. The medical approach focuses more on the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and also the biological causes of disease. The main focus of the medical approach is on individual health. The public health approach focuses on groups of people. They do this through health promotion and prevention. The public health approach also uses interventions to tackle public health issues. Lastly those in public health consider …show more content…
These levels include policymaking, social factors, health services, biology and genetics, and individual behavior. Policymaking can include creating policies that improve population health, such as requiring seat belts. Requiring seat belts can impact health by reducing the injury and death rates in car accidents. Social factors include social determinants such as, public safety, and physical determinants, such as the natural environment. If the natural environment that one lives in has poor air quality it can impact health by causing diseases such as asthma. Health services include the services that one has or does not have that can impact health, such as health insurance. The lack of health insurance can impact health by causing people not to see a healthcare provider unless something serious is wrong. If one has health insurance it can improve health because those that have it will see a healthcare provider more routinely. Biology and genetics are the factors that one has, such as age, which can lead to certain health outcomes. Those that are older are prone to more health issues whereas those that are younger tend to be healthier. Individual behavior that effect health outcomes can include diet and physical activity. The better ones diet and the more they exercise, the healthier they will …show more content…
Policy interventions can best address majority of the multi-level determinants. Policy interventions are powerful, long lasting, and can impact large populations. Because policy interventions are usually laws or regulations it makes implementing them easier. For an example, excessive alcohol use is included in the individual behavior of the multi-level determinants. Excessive alcohol use can increase ones risk of health problems such as, liver disease, heart problems, unintentional injuries, etc. There are policies to help reduce the rates that the consumption of excessive alcohol can cause. These policies include the legal drinking age and drunk driving laws. The intent in implementing these laws is to not only decreases the rates liver disease, deaths, etc. but to also discourage those people that drink excessive alcohol to stop or slow