Public Health is about...

preventing disease, reducing health inequalities, and protecting and promoting Healthy Living through work focused on the population as a whole. This involves working in a variety of ways.

For example:

• promoting health and reducing health inequalities as a distinct focus of health service work
• influencing priorities for investment in the NHS based on an understanding of health needs in the population and the relative benefits of different kinds of health services
• promoting partnership and community involvement
• identifying and tackling the determinants of health such as education
• working as advocates for communities with particular needs
• documenting and describing health trends in the population, reviewing the causes of ill health and the effectiveness of local strategies to improve health
• preventing ill health through appropriate screening programmes and by providing information and support
• protecting the population from infectious disease through immunisation and vaccination, monitoring and surveillance of disease, addressing environmental hazards and emergency planning.