What is Public Health?
- Health of the population as a whole:
- Monitored
- Regulated
- Promoted
- Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities
- Promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease and injury, prevention, detecting and responding to infectious diseases
- A large part of public health is promoting health equity, focusing on disparities and addressing social determinants of health, quality and accessibility.
What do Public Health Professionals do?
- Prevent epidemics and the spread of disease
- Protects against environmental hazards
- Prevents injuries
- Promotes and encourages healthy behaviors
- Responds to disasters and assists communities in recovery
- Assures the quality and accessibility of health services
10 Essential Services of Public Health
- Monitor health status to identify and solve community health problems
- Diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community
- Inform, educate, and empower people about health issues
- Mobilize community partnerships and action to identify and solve health problems
- Develop policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts
- Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety
- Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable
- Assure competent public and personal health care workforce
- Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services
- Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
3 Buckets of Public Health Prevention

Assist with National Voluntary Accreditation for Health Departments
- Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB)
- National accrediting body for public health departments
- Established in 2007
- Program launched in September 2011
- Co-funded by CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Field driven―guided by practitioner input and testing
The goal of a voluntary national accreditation program is to improve and protect the public’s health by advancing the quality and performance of state, tribal, local, and territorial public health departments