What Is Public Health?

Public health is the study and practice of how best to improve the overall health, and health gain, of populations rather than individuals. 

The most widely used and over-arching definition of public health was coined by Sir Donald Acheson in 1988 as:

“the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting, protecting and improving health through the organised efforts of society”. ¹

This definition encompasses a very wide range of activities and stresses the importance of a strategic approach to public health as well as collaboration between different groups and individuals to achieve these aims.

The Faculty of Public Health describes an approach to public health which:

• Emphasises the collective responsibility for improvement in health and on prevention of disease.
• Recognises the key role of the state, linked to a concern for the underlying socio-economic and wider determinants of health, as well as disease.
• Is multidisciplinary, incorporating quantitative as well as qualitative methods.
• Emphasises partnerships with all those who contribute to the health of the population.

Work undertaken in public health principally falls within three key domains:

Health Protection & Prevention	Service Quality (previously known as Health & Social Care)	Health Improvement
Disease and injury prevention Communicable disease control Environmental health Emergency planning	Quality Clinical effectiveness Efficiency Service planning Audit and evaluation Clinical governance	Employment Housing Family/community Education Inequalities/exclusion Lifestyle advice

Across these three domains the Faculty of Public Health identifies 10 core elements of public health practice, which form the basis of competency standards. These 10 core elements provide an overview of the breadth of skills that all those working in public health need to maximise their contribution to health gain, whatever their field of work.  More information about these core elements, and public health in general, is available from the Faculty of Public Health website (www.fph.org.uk) or see links below:

The ten core elements of public health practice

1. Surveillance and assessment of the population’s health and well being.
2. Promoting and protecting the population’s health and well-being
3. Developing quality and risk management within an evaluative culture
4. Collaboratively working for health
5. Developing health programmes and services and reducing inequalities
6. Policy and strategy development and implementation
7. Working with and for communities
8. Strategic leadership for health and wellbeing
9. Research and development to improve health and wellbeing
10. Ethically managing self, people and resources to improve health and wellbeing