Medications

Drug design at the atomic level to thwart COVID-19

Although COVID-19 has faded from the headlines, SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus behind the pandemic—is still rampantly infecting people around the world. Public health officials fear as the virus continues to evolve, it will ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

An online tool for long COVID support

A website to support people living with long COVID is launched today, on Long COVID Awareness Day (March 15), by a research team led by a Southampton professor with first-hand experience of the condition.

Medications

Who benefits from direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising?

A new study co-authored by a University of Massachusetts Amherst economist reveals the value of government vaccine recommendations to drugmakers, as well as potential benefits of advertising pharmaceuticals directly to consumers—a ...

Health

Q&A: The rising rates of immunosuppression among US adults

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, as it became clear that people with suppressed immune systems were particularly vulnerable to the worst of the virus, public health officials prioritized their protection. Leaders presented ...

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Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals." (1920, C.E.A. Winslow)[citation needed] It is concerned with threats to the overall health of a community based on population health analysis. The population in question can be as small as a handful of people or as large as all the inhabitants of several continents (for instance, in the case of a pandemic). Public health is typically divided into epidemiology, biostatistics and health services. Environmental, social, behavioral, and occupational health are also important subfields.

There are 2 distinct characteristics of public health:

1. It deals with preventive rather than curative aspects of health 2. It deals with population-level, rather than individual-level health issues

The focus of public health intervention is to prevent rather than treat a disease through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviors. In addition to these activities, in many cases treating a disease may be vital to preventing it in others, such as during an outbreak of an infectious disease. Hand washing, vaccination programs and distribution of condoms are examples of public health measures.

The goal of public health is to improve lives through the prevention and treatment of disease. The United Nations' World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA