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Essay Unit 8 - Promoting Public Health
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Unit 8 Public healthIn 1920, Charles-Edward Amory Winslow defined public health as the ‘science and art of
preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental health and well-
being'. (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021) Public health entails supporting
people with their health and reducing hazards that could prevent people from being healthy.
The aim of public health is to promote the risks that may result in ill health/well-being in
communities and addressing the health challenges (NHS, 2016). The NHS has improved the
nation's health throughout the years by reducing infectious diseases and producing more
effective treatments resulting in greater survival rates. This has increased the quality of life,
which has increased an individuals' life expectancy. The government has ensured that more
funding has been given to the NHS so can meet the aims of the public health (Office for
National Statistics, 2018).
Public health as evolved over the years; this can be on the timeline in figure 1 below.
Evaluation is key to planning and target setting to meet the aims of public health in England.
Their aims from 2020-2025 is to have a smoke-free society, have healthier diets and weights,
cleaner air etc. Their aims are putting strategies in place to lower these numbers. Obesity is
a current growing threat affecting the NHS at the moment. According to a Health Survey
conducted in 2021, 25.9% of people in England are obese, and another 37.9% are
overweight but not obese, accounting for more than half of the population (Baker, 2023).
The cost-of-living crisis is driving obesity to grow; people are on a budget resulting in them
going for the cheapest food, which is generally non-nutritious food; this is leading people to
, grow overweight due to the consumption of highly processed and calorific foods like junk
food. Obesity is a serious health problem that can to other serious conditions such as type 2
diabetes and coronary heart disease. (Senedd business, 2023) A target they may set is to
reduce obesity stats by 10% over the next 5 years, they will then plan how they are going to
do this. This may be by putting in place a campaign, an example of this is the new adult
obesity campaign called better health which encourages people to lose weight through a
free NHS weight loss plan, it has shown to be affective as people who use this strategy have
lost nearly a stone is just 12 weeks (NHS, 2023). A weakness of this campaign is that it takes
a lot of money to fund a campaign and it may not work, at first it may be beneficial to try it
in a small area to see if it is effective and then expand campaign for the rest of the country.
They will evaluate how this plan has worked halfway through to see if the plans they have
put in place what helped reduce the statistics. If it is effective then they will keep the plans
the same, this will be a positive as means it will help tackle the rise in obesity. If it is not
effective because the statistics are not improving, then they will review and look at different
ways they can’t improve it to meet their objectives. (Public Health Ontario, 2020)
The 3Ps are made up of health protection, promotion, and prevention. One of the strategies
used to protect health is health protection, which involves minimising and controlling
threats to individuals and communities. It consists of finding methods to safeguard the
public from communicable and non-communicable diseases. Vaccinations are one of the
methods; they are one of the most effective strategies for preventing infectious diseases. It
also focuses on strategies to protect individuals from environmental threats such as
pollution, hazardous chemicals, and water contamination. (Cornwall council, 2023) Health
promotion is the process of empowering individuals and communities to take control over
their health and improve it. It focuses on using basic strategies to encourage healthy
behaviours like meditation, so that they may improve their lifestyle. This can be achieved by
educating them on the options available to improve their health, a way to do this is giving
them leaflets and posters on the implication obesity and smoking can have on the body, this
contributes to meeting public health goals, such as having a smoke-free society and healthy
diets and weights. (croner-i, 2018) Health prevention is taking the necessary measures to
prevent diseases from occurring. Prevention is split into three stages: primary, secondary,
and tertiary. Primary prevention includes putting measures in place to prevent diseases from
occurring. This can be achieved by vaccinations and changing harmful habits such as
unhealthy diets and smoking. Secondary prevention involves detecting illnesses early, before
the signs and symptoms occur. This can be achieved by going to screenings and frequent
check-ups. Tertiary prevention is the management of the illness after it has been diagnosed
to prevent its development; this may involve chemotherapy and rehabilitation therapies
(CDC, 2019).
Reducing the risk through screening is beneficial as it allows for early identification of
diseases. Screenings are tests performed to detect illnesses and health issues before they
develop as signs and symptoms. Screenings help find the abnormalities early on, so they are
easy to treat. (OASH, 2023) Certain cancers have screening tests, such as cervical cancer;
when a screening is performed, they are not looking for cervical cancer, but rather for HPV.
HPV is a virus that can create cell abnormalities in the cervix and if left untreated it can lead
to cervical cancer. At the age of 12 many girls are now given an HPV vaccine to reduce their
chances of developing it and preventing it from progressing to cervical cancer. (NHS, 2019)
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