Public authorities must protect and improve the health and wellness of citizens to reduce health disparities. Hence, to achieve this initiative, there is a need to create and maintain conditions under which members of public can be healthy. Although this responsibility lies within all sectors of a society, public health agencies have a major role to play. Promoting health and wellbeing does not necessarily translate to reducing infections. Instead, it is a complex and multifaceted engagement that should enhance the circumstances in which people live,such as accessibility to health facilities, educational institutions, leisure, work conditions, and towns or cities (Ghebrehewet et al, 2016,p. 7). It also involves the individuals’ way of life as well as their cultural characteristics that include values and discrimination, gender, social statuses, age, and norms based on ethnicity. Hence, to protect and improve the nations’ health and well-being as well as to reduce health disparities, public health should address the underlying causes of the health inequalities in society.
The Concept of Public Health
To understand the role of public health in protecting and improving the health of communities in England, it is imperative to define public health. In England context, public health specialists are no longer doctors (Ghebrehewet et al. 2016, p. 7). Through multidisciplinary approach, training of public health is based on competencies. In essence, public health refer to the science and art of controlling diseases, improving quality of life, prolonging life, and promoting the health of human beings through efforts from both governmental and non-governmental efforts.
Domains of Public Health
There are three domains of public health. Public health practice is the first field, which is responsible for preventing and responding to disease outbreaks and other chemical, biological, and environmental factors that may affect the health of individuals. Health improvement is the second domain that comprises health promotion services and public policies related to promoting health and wellness. The third domain is healthcare public health, which entails the role of public health personnel in assessing healthcare requirements. It also entails planning, designing, and monitoring of healthcare services and their efficacy.
In an attempt to protect and maintain health and wellbeing of the society, public health England has developed three core roles, which include delivering of healthcare services to both national and local government as well as the members of public, leading in matters public health, and offering support to the development of specialists as well as the general workforce of public health (Ghebrehewet et al. 2016, p. 7)..
The public health England ensures that members of public receive medical services, including specialist services, irrespective of their geographical region. The initiaitive aims at protecting the public against infectious illnesses while minimizing the impacts of such threats. To achieve this, England public health personnel should provide leadership and coordinateboth national and local levels (Bradley, 2014, p. 18). Delivery of service also entails ensuring data and intelligence information is delivered timely to facilitate response plan that will promote and protect the health and wellbeing of the populace, prevent diseases and infections, tackle the issues of inequality,promote equality, and improve public health outcomes. The other key function of service delivery is to create awareness in case of an outbreak through the available channels of communication such as the social media. The other role covers activities across the entire public health spectrum and encourages accountability and transparency across the entire system of public health with the intentions of enhancing community health (Public Health England. 2014, p. 88). Therefore, the basic roles of the public health are:
- Ensuring that the members of public are healthy by protecting them from health hazards.
- Bridging the gap between rural and urban settlements with regard to accessibility of healthcare.
- Preparing respongingto health emergencies.
- Promoting the health of the entire population by spreading information about their expertise and being prepared for the healthcare challenges that may arise in future.
- Supporting national and local authorities to plan, develop and implement policies and to provide immunization programmers and screening services.
- Conducting researches by collecting and analyzing data with the aim of increasing awareness about healthcare challenges and how those issues can be minimized in future (Public Health England 2014, p. 7). Indeed, this has augmented their understanding of illnesses and infections and enabled them to provide answers to public and other health workers.
The functions of public health are carried out by governmental health organizations and environmental protection. Non-governmental organizations and other concerned stakeholders work together with these two agencies or operate with approval from the two. In most cases, they will receive funding and technical assistance from the government (Wilson, Mabhala & Massey 2015, p. 6). England administration, just as other governments, operate as a representative of the citizens; therefore, the ultimate functions of public health must be within the government agencies.
Studies have shown that inequality has an impact on the health and wellness of individuals (Frank et al. 2014, p. 144). In the U.K. for example, life expectancy is eighty years. However, families living in dearth show poorer outcomes on infant morbidity and mortality, obesity, drug dependency, and other ailments and socioeconomic aspects that jeopardizes their life expectancy. In this regard, reducing healthcare inequalities can protect and maintain the health and well-being of England population. Public health England can develope interventions and policies such as the introduction of a living wage to reduce the health and social inequalities.
Creating educative programmes and developing policies aimed at bridging the gap between the social determinants of health areas are other approaches that public health England can utilize to achieve their roles. The social determinants of health refer to the conditions in which individuals are born, brought up, live, and work as they they grow old. Such factors include housing, education, family income, employment, childhood experiences, and access to healthcare services among other determinants . In fact, to protect and improve the health and wellness of individuals while reducing health inequalities through improving the social determinants of health is key to ensuring healthy society. Personally, I feel that improving the social determinants of health is the most important way in which public authorities can fulfill their role of enhancing wellbeing while reducing the existing health inequalities. Policy makers should explore on strategies that can be developed and implemented to achieve this mission, and hence address the underlying causes of health inequalities in society.
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