Public Health
Its activities focus on preventing disease and injuries, responding to public health threats, promoting good physical and mental health, and providing information to support informed decision-making (FDA)
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History & Future
Future
The future public health workforce will be racially and ethnically diverse and include a broader skill set base, such as data analysis expertise and improved ability to connect with and explain concepts to the public. Public health will also be incorporated into K-12 education, creating a career path that begins early. Future public health funding models will include blended and braided mechanisms to streamline a patchwork system; private equity funding and social impact investing; public health trusts; community development financial institutions (CDFIs); and environment, social, and governance (ESG) investments. Future public health data systems will enable cross-sector, real-time data-sharing.
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Public health evolved through trial and error and with expanding scientific medical knowledge, often controversial, often stimulated by war and natural disasters. The need for organized health protection grew as part of the development of community life, and in particular, urbanization and social reforms. Religious and societal beliefs influenced approaches to explaining and attempting to control communicable diseases through sanitation, town planning, and provision of medical care. Religions and social systems have also viewed scientific investigation and the spread of knowledge as threatening, resulting in the inhibition of developments in public health, with modern examples of opposition to birth control, immunization, and food fortification. The history of public health progress has proven that the broadest and most effective public health benefits are obtained from remedial or preventive measures taken by a central authority and involving environmental interventions that lower the exposure of large populations to environmentally transmitted diseases.
