Jasmine Directory

Public health & safety are two essentials for creating an atmosphere in which health & fitness can thrive. Public health is an organized community effort to prevent disease and thereby prolong life, and improve health among its citizens. The communication efforts are aimed at individuals, groups, organizations, and the community in general. A good part of public health & safety works to keep the local community informed about good health practices, such as washing hands, offering free medical procedures, such as vaccinations, and educating the public about health.

Public health works on the level of the entire community, rather than on an individual basis. It also focuses on prevention rather than on curative programs. The local public health agencies also work by tracking neighborhood and community disease patterns and outbreaks, and informing the people about those occurrences. Many public health programs are centered in local government health departments. Some attempts at prevention include working in foreign countries to stem the outbreaks of devastating diseases, such as AIDS.

Public health also deals with preventing the transmission of dangerous types of flu such as the pig flu or the Avian influenza that can seriously affect people with a rickety immune system or those with heart conditions and a precarious overall health status. The department of public health consists in three areas: biostatistic, epidemiology and the health services, each of them having more subfields.

Most of those PHSs (Public Health Services) are also involved in international activities that have as a purpose preventing the infection with viruses and bacterias among a community. Since ancient times people resented the need of having a "team" that deals with health issues in order to maintain it at the proper level. Therefore, every big epidemic throughout history such as the Spanish Flu which was an influenza pandemic or the Pig Flu in 1976 helped at developing new vaccines and treatments in order to cure patients that would possibly suffer from these illnesses again in the future, preventing death or complications.

The public health does not only deal with the safety of the citizens when it comes to illnesses such as colds, it also deals with more serious problems like infection with the HIV virus in Africa, where 22 million people are infected with HIV out of the total of 33 million worldwide. Public health has to inform people about safety measures in order not to get infected and also explain people about the prophylactic treatment in case of exposing to HIV that has to be administrated within 24 hours from the moment of infection. It is very important for people to be aware of such kind of information.

Early efforts at public health recognized the need for clean water and proper waste disposal. Some religions attempted to aid public health by setting forth rules for food and behaviors including sexual practices. Government then stepped in as they recognized that social prosperity and progress relied upon public health & safety. Inoculation and vaccination brought about improvements in general health and lifespan. More modern studies of germs and waste treatment improved health and safety also. Today, some laws are the direct result of public health studies, such as smoking bans.

Public safety is an extension of public health. This includes public protection by police and fire departments, emergency medical services, and public health departments. A web directory is a valuable reference resource for tracking public health & safety issues.