SL12100

LECTURE 3: INTRO TO PUBLIC HEALTH

1. Definition of public health:

Public Health = taking organized measures to prevent disease, promote health and prolong life among the
population as a whole.

2. Key National Public Health issues in the UK:

- What diseases we die from, what diseases do we live with, common risk factors for disease, building blocks of a
population’s health.
- Multimorbidity is the norm, diseases and their management can magnify risks of others.
- Taking into account health inequality and social determinants of health.

3. Three pillars of public health:

i) Health promotion = enabling people to improve their health by supporting healthy lifestyles.
ii) Health protection = preventing harm, including infectious disease control (vaccinations/sexual health
services/drug services/medication review).
iii) Healthcare public health = ensuring out health services are working as efficiently as possible (using evidence
based practice/contribute to good governance and management).

4. Explain how pharmacists play a vital role in public health:

- Promote healthy lifestyles + address health inequalities.
- Offer services such as smoking cessation support/hypertension case finding in community pharmacies.
- Healthy living pharmacies = trained a skilled team to support and promote behavior change with health
champions. Dedicated promotion zones. Local community engagement and outreach.