Health Inequality Within Communities

2575 Words6 Pages

Introduction Public health as it is implicated in the lives of the community – it is important to conceptualise what this might mean. Moreover, public health has seen as a multidiscipline perspective in which it can be defined on many levels, and I find that it could be elusive to understand its meaning. By simple understanding of public health, I refer to an approach derived by Winslow (1920) and Baggott (2000). In some way, public health is seen as a modern philosophical and ideological perspective based on ‘equity’ and aimed to determine inequitable in society. It seen as a ‘science’ and ‘art’ in the sense that it deals with the cause of disease, treatment of illness as well as it involves laboratory experiments, intervention and promoting of health of the population. Winslow (1920, p. 23) defined public health as ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting physical health and efficiency through organised community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organisation of medical and nursing service for early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health. On the other hand, it is ‘the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through organised effort of society’ (Acheson, 1998; in Cowley S, 2002, p. 261). This is more holistic approach in the sense that it ‘involves the promotion of health, preventing of disease, the treatment of illness, the care for those who are disabled and continuous developm... ... middle of paper ... ...tiatives that link health care structures with the wider set of public sectors reforms and by doing so must approach the underlying determinants of health inequalities. . Works Cited Baggott R (2000) Public Health Policy and Politics: London McMillan Press Cowley S (2002) Public Health in Policy and Practice Bailliere Tindall Curtis S (2004) Health Inequality and Geographical Perspectives London Gormley K (1999) Social Policy and Health Care Churchill Livingstone Graig P and Lindsay G, (2000) Nursing for Public Health Pupolation –Based Care Churchill Livingstone Griffiths and Hunter D, (1999) Perspectives in Public Health Radcliffe Medical Orme J, Powell J Taylor P Harrison T Grey M (2003) Public Health for 21st Century Open University Press Le Grand, J (1987) ‘Equity, health and healthcare’, social justice research, 1, 257-74

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