Public Health
Nature of the work
Public health is about improving the health of
large groups of people, rather than treating individual
patients. Public health specialists strive to realise ways of
making communities and environments healthier and more capable of
providing us with what we need for optimal health. The specialty
calls for ‘upstream thinkers’ operating on principles of prevention
rather than cure.
Public health consultants must look at the big
picture and take action to promote healthy lifestyles, prevent
disease, protect and improve general health and improve healthcare
services. They could work for a rural community, a city, or the
global population.
Working in public health
Specialists take on the challenge of extremely
varied and often unpredictable workloads. Specialists have a broad
understanding of all the factors that contribute to health,
including the structure of healthcare systems and services, current
government policy and how to effectively interpret available data.
They are skilled at evaluating evidence to devise and implement
strategies for improving and protecting health, and health
services.
Timescales for getting projects up and running
can be long and require a great deal of negotiation, but a good
public health consultant will be able to handle the challenge. They
seldom, if ever, work on a single project at a time, and must be
able to respond to emergencies as they arise. Public health
consultants need to be tough negotiators and possess good powers of
persuasion to convince the community, stakeholder organisations and
politicians to work effectively towards common goals.
As long as there are health problems and
health inequalities there will be a need for public health
specialists. The nature of practice has changed, just as the nature
of major health problems changes. Preventable chronic diseases are
now increasingly competing with infection, but with HIV,
drug-resistant bacteria and the threat of a flu pandemic, public
health is having to dust off old skills as well as learn new
ones.
Common procedures/interventions
Some consultants will become experts in a
specific area of public health, while others find that their job
incorporates a cross-section of public health activities and/or
research. However, their work usually falls within one or all of
the following three domains:
- improving health
- protecting health
- improving health services.
Associated sub specialties
Health Improvement
Health Protection (including communicable disease control)
Health and Social care quality (including specialised
commissioning)
Health Intelligence
Academic Public Health
Further information
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