Public health

Public health is the science and practice of protecting and improving population health through prevention, policy, education, and organized community action.

Epidemiology: The study of the distribution and determinants of health and disease in populations. Epidemiology identifies patterns and causes that guide population-level prevention.
Social determinants of health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that shape health outcomes. They explain why health depends on conditions beyond individual behavior and medical care.
Environmental health: The field concerned with how environmental conditions affect human health. It addresses population risks from air, water, housing, and other surroundings.
John Snow: An English physician whose investigation of cholera in London helped establish modern epidemiology. His 1854 Broad Street investigation linked cases to a contaminated water source.
Smallpox eradication: The global elimination of naturally occurring smallpox through coordinated vaccination and surveillance. It demonstrates that sustained collective action can eliminate a human infectious disease.
Disease surveillance: The ongoing collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data to guide public health action. Surveillance detects emerging threats and tracks whether interventions work.
Health equity: The fair and avoidable absence of differences in health and its determinants among population groups. Equity gives public health a standard for judging whether health gains are fairly shared.
Occupational health: The protection and promotion of workers’ health through safer work and prevention of occupational hazards. Workplaces are settings where organized prevention can reduce shared exposures.
Cholera: An acute diarrheal disease caused by infection with Vibrio cholerae. Cholera outbreaks drove major advances in sanitation and epidemic investigation.
Life expectancy: The average number of years a person is expected to live under specified mortality rates. Population-wide prevention and safer living conditions have contributed to longer lives.

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