"Organized efforts of society to protect, promote, and restore people's health. It is the combination of science, skills, and beliefs that is directed to the maintenance and improvement of the health of all the people through collective or social actions. The programs, services and institutions involved emphasize the prevention of disease and the health needs of the population as a whole. Public health activities change with variations in technology and social values but the goals remain the same: to reduce the amount of disease, premature death, and disease-produced discomfort and disability in the population. Public health is thus a social institution, a discipline, and a practice."
Public Health (Institute of Medicine, Public Health and Prevention)
Public health practice is what "...we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy." Institute of Medicine, 1988 & 2003 Reports (http://www.iom.edu/topic.asp?
· adopting a focus on population health that includes multiple determinants of health
· strengthening the public health infrastructure
· building partnerships
· developing systems of accountability
· emphasizing evidence
· improving communication
Population Health (World Health Organization)
"Organized efforts focused on the health of defined populations in order to promote and maintain or restore health, to reduce the amount of disease, premature death and disease-produced discomfort and disability. Programs, services and institutions here emphasize the prevention of disease and the health needs of the population as a whole. Among a broad scope of disciplines, various knowledge and skills are utilized such as bio-statistics, epidemiology, planning, organization, management, financing and evaluation of health programs, environmental health, application of social and behavioral factors in health and disease, health promotion, health education and nutrition."
Prevention (World Health Organization)
"The goals of medicine are to promote health, to preserve health, to restore health when it is impaired, and to minimize suffering and distress. These goals are embodied in the word prevention, which is easiest to define in the context of levels, customarily called primary, secondary and tertiary prevention:
Primary prevention refers to the protection of health by personal and community wide effects, such as preserving good nutritional status, physical fitness, and emotional well-being, immunizing against infectious diseases, and making the environment safe.
Secondary prevention can be defined as the measures available to individuals and populations for the early detection and prompt and effective intervention to correct departures from good health.
Tertiary prevention consists of the measures available to reduce or eliminate long-term impairments and disabilities, minimize suffering caused by existing departures from good health, and to promote the patient's adjustment to irremediable conditions. This extends the concept of prevention into the field of rehabilitation. There are no precise boundaries between these levels."
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