The term public health refers to the ‘science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health’ (Winslow, 1920) and encompasses everything affecting the health of a population as a whole, rather than the individuals of which it is composed. A population may be all members of a nation or geographical region, or a defined group, for example all children under five years of age, all members of a minority ethnic group, or all women during the potential childbearing years. Public health is also concerned with non-communicable diseases, for example cancers, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
Here we focus specifically on the public health approach to infectious disease. This encompasses four broad areas of work:
All of these areas are addressed in the rest of this course after a very brief review of the origins of the public health movement.
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