masters of public health

masters of public health

The Importance of Public Health Education

1. The Role of Public Health Professionals

It’s important to recognize that the role of public health has changed over time. In the early 1900s, Winslow defined public health as “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the education of the individual in personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis and prevention of disease, and the development of the social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community, a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health.” Although Winslow’s definition is still a good starting point, public health has become more interdisciplinary in operations. Public health professionals now also include sociologists, economists, urban planners, engineers, and lawyers. All of these professionals use their own disciplinary knowledge to address a wide range of public health issues. In addition, public health today has integrated the use of health information technology (IT) to further its goals. This includes the use of electronic health records, which are used by more than 50% of the nation’s physicians and allow for better tracking of patients’ medical histories. Another example of IT in public health is the use of geographic information systems (GIS) which are used to create detailed maps of the spread of diseases within specific populations. By using IT, public health professionals are able to work more efficiently and are also able to reach a larger number of people. Public health has also been described as a science emphasizing the goal of maintenance and improvement of the health of populations rather than just the health of individuals. This is a shift higher up on the Continuum of Health which we discussed in class and in the readings. Years later, the Institute of Medicine went on to further describe the work of public health stating: the fulfillment of society’s interest in assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy. Achieving the best collective health for the most amount of people at the lowest cost. Recognition and analysis of the health of society is a key part of this statement. Today, public health professionals analyze a society’s health to identify existing problems and also potential threats to the community’s health. This is done through the work of epidemiologists, or those who study the patterns and causes of diseases in populations. By analyzing the health of a community and also the subgroups within, public health is able to accurately and efficiently improve the health of the population at large.

2. The Need for Public Health Education

The purpose of health education is to enable an individual or a community to make an informed decision about health. The importance of health education also extends into policy and legislation development at a local, state, and national level. One of the success stories of public health in the United States is Presumptive Eligibility. The Presumptive Eligibility for Pregnant Women (PE4PW) program provides immediate, temporary coverage for prenatal care to low-income pregnant women in Medi-Cal, county health care programs, and Access for Infants and Mothers, who are not already receiving Medi-Cal and who visit PE4PW participating qualified provider sites. This program increases women’s access to early and consistent prenatal care by making it available at the first point of contact on-site where pregnant women are seeking services, such as WIC, food stamps, and other social services. By identifying pregnancy quickly and presuming women to be eligible, pregnant women can access care right away, avoiding later diagnoses and a scramble to find coverage before care can be delivered. This gives pregnant women the ability to receive important educational information and preventive health care that results in healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. This program increases the clients and revenue to both private and public providers. In 2006, PE4PW served approximately 302,000 pregnant women at over 2,200 sites throughout the state. With a federal match of 88%, the program provides close to $30 million in quarterly payments to providers. An evaluation of PE4PW performed by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research concluded, “PE4PW is an unqualified success. It has dramatically increased the number of pregnant women who receive Medi-Cal prenatal care benefits.

3. Core Competencies in Public Health

This comes at a time where there is often more interest in public health degrees than there are programs and teachers to effectively deliver them. In this sense, the competencies will provide a guideline for teachers to properly train public health professionals and help sort out issues with the fluctuating employment and course availability in public health education.

They are expecting to revisit the competencies soon with guidance from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) with increased focus allocation between areas 1-7. This will be an invaluable tool for all institutions providing a public health degree because it will ensure that what it means to have a public health degree is consistent. It also encourages a more meaningful learning experience where students can look to be gaining specific knowledge and skills, and faculty can use the competencies to effectively guide them in translating this into improved learning.

This came at a critical time where significant systemic problems in the education of public health professionals were coming to light. With a lack of consistency in the curriculum and confusion about what a public health degree means, setting these competencies means setting a standard.

In 2006, the council proposed a set of seven areas which it says are the “crosscutting and unique to public health.” These are being used by public health education institutions to adapt and better refine curricula. These include: 1) interdisciplinary/communication, 2) diversity/culture, 3) evidence-based approaches, 4) public health and health care systems, 5) global health, 6) policy, and 7) the community dimensions of practice.

The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice, which was established in 1992, is a coalition of 22 national organizations from public health, academic, and practice sectors. It aims to improve the education of public health professionals, preparing them to better address the needs of the public health system.

4. Specializations in Public Health

Global health is essentially public health at an international level. In efforts to improve the health of the world’s populations, whether it’s the health of a specific group of people or the overall health of the world, it is essential to look towards the future. Global health is aimed towards improving the health of the entire population of the world by utilizing collective actions and addressing global health issues. It’s a very broad field that can incorporate anything from the influencing of international legislation, to a specific culture’s health care needs. These initiatives of global health have the potential to effect great change on a global scale.

Though the core competencies within public health do not change, the specific content and methods relevant to the practice of public health vary widely around the world. Public health professionals can find many opportunities to apply their skills and knowledge to affect international health. The overarching goals are to apply the methods and the development of policy that promotes better health for all people. At the global level, public health may have a specific focus on the health needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations. These efforts will seek to provide effective and affordable health care to all individuals regardless of their ability to pay. The field of public health is now more important than ever given the worldwide threats to health, the dramatic increase in chronic diseases, and the persistent inequalities in health across and within countries. Global public health today is much more a tale of the potential for and actual execution of global health, than the traditional activity of public health and preventive medicine in national settings.

5. Career Opportunities in Public Health

The field of public health is extremely diverse, and professionals within the field can anticipate a wide range of job titles and responsibilities. They may work in either the public or private sector. According to the American Public Health Association, professionals within the field have the opportunity to work in such areas as “community health, schools, government, business, managed care organizations, and research”.

Public health education offers wonderful career opportunities in an occupation that, in the first half of the 21st century, is expected to experience staggering growth. In fact, public health is cited as one of the most rapidly expanding career fields in the nation, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Recent and projected increases in the number of public health-related jobs, combined with the absence of a sufficient number of trained personnel to fill these positions, indicate good job prospects in the coming years. This is, in part, due to a growing aging population, as well as an increase in the number of health-related issues among communities recently and in response to disasters such as the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent anthrax scares.