Question

Give a brief history of American public health agencies. Describe these different levels of public health and how they work to keep communities safe.

Subject :Public and community health

Answer 1

1) "American public health association", well known as APHA was founded in the year 1872. The main aim of APHA is to improve and protect the health of all American citizens as well as identify the ways to improve the community health. Besides, it is helping society to get education regarding various diseases through healthcare sessions and programs.

Another public health agency is "Centers for Disease control and prevention" in U.S. or CDC. It was formed in the year 1946 and headquartered in Georgia. The health agency become successful to control malaria during world war II zone. During it's initial phases, CDC were spreading DDT to millions of houses to prevent mosquito control.

2) There are basically three levels of public health which are :-

a) Primary prevention :-

Primary prevention is taking preventive measures before the occurrence of the disease. It is basically taking precaution for any disease. Some examples are - immunization, consuming healthy diet and at proper times, meditating and doing regular exercises etc.

b) Secondary prevention :-

Secondary prevention is when a disease occurred by diagnosis and it is being treated with medication to prevent any further spreading of disease. Here, with proper skills and experience, the healthcare practitioners can diagnose any severe illness in it's early stages and thus can save the patient. Some examples are - minor heart abnormality such as abnormality in beat, high or low blood pressure, high gloucose level in blood etc.

c) Tertiary prevention :-

In this level, the healthcare practitioners aims to recover the health of the patient and tries to bring him/her back to the normal life again. In this level, patients may form a disability if not treated well. Some examples are :- advanced level treatment or medication for any disease.

How to keep communities safe :-

At primary prevention level, healthcare agencies may promote Heath related programs and can educate the community regarding many unknown or severe diseases. This would help the community to maintain a good balanced diet or to take precautions in some other ways.

At secondary prevention level, heath care agencies can encourage the people for health check up from time to time so that if early diagnosis of any disease shows, they can take necessary treatment for those. This early treatment may mitigate the chances of spreading the disease or may fully suppress it.

At tertiary prevention level, agencies can help the patients in the rehabilitation process so that they can go back to their normal lives. Also, prescribing them to take the medicines regularly is necessary.

Hope this helps :)