P H 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Environmental Health
Document Summary
Fulfillment of society"s interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy. Organized community efforts aimed at prevention of disease and the promotion of health. 3 core functions of ph: assessment, policy development, assurance. Ph regards the community as its patient, trying to improve health of the population. Medicine focuses on healing patients who are ill; ph focuses on preventing illnesses. Only ~ 3% of the nation"s total health spending is spent on public health. Both ph and medicine depend on the biomedical sciences. Major proportion of human disease is caused by microorganisms. Concerned with preventing spread of disease through water, air, food. Ph is concerned with social and behavioral sciences. Ph"s approach to health problems in a community: Identify risk factors associated with the problem: define health prob. 2: develop and test community-lvl interventions to control or prevent cause of problem. 4: monitor those interventions to assess their effectiveness.
