Public Health by Kolade Latoya Adediji

Unit 12 public health by Kolade Latoya Adediji

Introduction

In my assignment I will be describing the key aspects of public health strategies and also describing the origins of public health policy in the uk from the 19th century to the present day and finally compare historical and current of public health.

P1) describe key aspects of public health strategies

Monitoring the health status of the population:

This involves the changes of the health population being tracked and if any problems are identified people are informed and identified. For example, if this was done for type 2 diabetes, to monitor the health of those who have type 2 diabetes by tracking the number of individuals with the condition within the population, tracking and monitoring numbers helps the NHS find out how many people have this condition so they can take further precautions and actions.  

Identify the health needs of the population:

 For the health needs of a population to be identified, trends and patterns must firstly be established, for the implications for serving can be uncovered. Nationally collected statistics can also identify disease trends in the whole or the UK. These nationally collected statistics are also used to see how health can be improved, highlight areas effected, and how these areas can reduce and prevent ill health. Trends and patterns of disease and ill health can be caused by many different factors such as age, environment and education. For example, to prevent from individuals from contracting HIV the NHS and the government provide free contraception (condoms) to young people and adults.

Developing programmes to reduce the risk and screen for early disease:

 Information is collected by epidemiologists, which is someone who studies and analyses the patterns, causes and effects of health and disease. The information collected by the epidemiologist used to form the base of health programmes. These programmes are used to reduce the levels of ill health and when new programmes are brought in, they identify individuals as being at risk and then involve them in a prevention program. An example of a program would be the “five a day” this was when everyone was encouraged to have at least 5 servings or fruit or vegetables, as it would improve health and wellbeing and help with the repair of bones, tissues and digestion.

Controlling communicable disease:

 This is the way in which infectious diseases are controlled and prevented using immunisation and other control methods. Early detection or diagnosis of a person’s illness or disease is very important as it provides details about what it was caused by, potential risks to certain groups or individuals for example babies are may be more susceptible to certain infections or diseases than adults or older children, because their immune systems are immature. The elderly also quite vulnerable to disease as their resistance is lower than younger people.   However sometimes individuals have compromised immune systems which leaves them at risk of their bodies not being able to fight of infectious disease. For example, isolation units in hospitals are a method that may be used to control certain communicable diseases such as tuberculosis.