Week 2 Reflection
How is my view on health changing? What are the core underlying values for me in terms of receiving healthcare or how healthcare is provided to the population?
I’m learning that health includes populations of people and by improving the health of a population you directly improve the health of the individual. This is because you address the determinants of health that affect the majority of people. Then you’re left with only dealing with a few people who require more specialised care. The core values are, the main health problem in the community be addressed and the determinants of health for the community are identified. Another core value for me is intervention.
Interventions are implemented to focus on the identified problems and the causes of the problem. “These interventions focus on three key public health services and functions: Promotion, prevention and protection.”
“These interventions have proven exceedingly successful in preventing diseases within the 20th century, such as vaccinations, improved sanitation, fewer deaths from heart disease and stroke, healthier mothers and babies, and reduction in tobacco use to name a few.”
Public health is important for the well-being of the individual in a community. Since it its interventions focus on the cause of any problem it saves lives as seen in the examples, I quoted in the paragraph above.
What did I find most interesting from this session and how did my understanding of the role of public health change?
What I found most interesting is how a single narrative can be accepted. It makes me question whether I have chosen to ignore the positives of the public health sector in South Africa.
Weekly Reflective Entry 2: Health Systems Science and Public Health
An important learning experience for me this week was learning the importance of public health and population health and how it ultimately benefits the individual even when they are not the focus. “Public health is defined as the science and art of promoting health and well-being, preventing ill-health and prolonging life through the organised efforts of society (Sir Donald Acheson, 1988, p. 5). Public health is concerned with improving the health of populations or groups of people, rather than treating individual patients.” The health of a population is assessed through community diagnosis which identifies, firstly, the main health concerns of the community, secondly, the determinants of health for the specific community. After the community diagnosis, an intervention is implemented. The interventions focus on prevention, promotion, and protection. The intervention addresses the most common problems and its cause. Intervention need some enabling functions to work, which are governance (regulations that guide us on what to do e.g., legislation), capacity (e.g. enough medical equipment, beds, etc.), advocacy(speaking up for the most vulnerable to the disease; including who have no choice such as those who use public transport), and information(guides in planning and interventions for example about the disease). After an intervention, we go and evaluate whether the intervention was successful. To evaluate we would look at the following factors incidence, prevalence, and mortality.
Population health is measured to: Assess the quality of life of a population/community. Develop a baseline of information against which changes over time can be measured or assessed. Help evaluate the impact of a project or service on people’s lives. Identify aspects of their lives people feel most dissatisfied with and aspects of community health that need tailored intervention. (e.g.: where to find Key/vulnerable/most affected populations). Help raise awareness of the different components of health among a particular population. Components that measure population health is Morbidity (impairment and disability) and mortality (infant mortality rate, child mortality rate, and case-specific mortality)
Determinants in health are multiple and varied factors that cause populations to be unhealthy or influence the health of a population. The extent to which individuals show symptoms of a disease is contingent upon additional determinants of health. These determinants include Individual biology (age, immunity, etc.). Behavioural determinants (help-seeking behaviours, harmful alcohol use, unsafe sex, smoking, limited physical activity, etc.). Social determinants (access to sanitation, working and living conditions, level of education, etc.)
From this week’s work I have learnt that public health is the best way for organisations or governments to improve the health of communities that they would like to help. Public health already takes into consideration the people who are part of the communities that are being helped for example two of the determinants of health is looking at individual biology and behavioural determinants. Hence, the success of previous interventions that improve the quality of life for the people makes sense, and due to the interventions relying on governance, capacity, advocacy and information public health uplifts the whole health system.
This course is about health system sciences, and health system sciences has public health as one of its pillars. Public health is a great way to improve the system because for it to be successful it takes into consideration the people of the community, the government, the capacity of hospitals and clinics in the community, advocacy, and teaching health information. Plus, in addition, public health does community diagnosis and then comes back to check whether the intervention worked. Health system sciences is about understanding how health is delivered to improve the health system so health can improve. Public health goes hand in hand with what health system sciences is about, it contributes a lot to understanding and through its evaluations improves the health system in the community.
Reflections:
Let’s Learn Public Health, 2017. What is Public Health? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_eWESXTnic&t=19sLinks to an external site.
(Last accessed: 13 September 2022).
Kindig, D. and Stoddart, G. 2003. What Is Population Health American Journal of Public Health, 93, 380-383.
Acheson, S.D., Office, G.B.H.M.S., 1998. Independent Inquiry Into Inequalities in Health Report. Stationery Office.
Marmot, M., 2005. Social determinants of health inequalities. The Lancet, 365(9464), pp.1099-1104. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673605711466 (Links to an external site.) (Last accessed: 13 September 2022).
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