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Public health facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
From Flies and Filth to Food and Fever
"From Flies and Filth to Food and Fever" from 1916

Public health is the science dealing with prevention there is a disease that is a threat to the overall health of a community, as well as with prolonging life and promoting health. The aims are achieved through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, public and private organizations, communities and individuals.

It bases on health analysis of a handful of people or all the inhabitants of several continents rather than on an individual. Public health includes such parts as epidemiology, biostatistics, health services, environmental, social, behavioral, and occupational health.

Public health intervention prevents rather than treats a disease through surveillance of cases and promotes healthy behaviors such as hand washing and vaccination programs. In outbreaks of an infectious disease, treating a disease may be vital to preventing it in others.

Most countries have their own government public health agencies, sometimes known as ministries of health, to respond to domestic health issues. Many diseases are preventable through simple, non-medical methods. Public health plays an important role in disease prevention efforts in the developing world and in developed countries, through local health systems and through international non-governmental organizations. In the developing world, there may not be enough trained health workers or monetary resources to provide a basic level of medical care and disease prevention.

Images for kids

  • Illustrated Current News-1918-Thompson, Paul

    Example of historical public health recommendations from 1918 in New Haven, Connecticut, United States

  • Community Health Workers (5762479865)

    Community health workers

  • World Health Organisation building from west

    The WHO is the predominant agency associated with global health

  • Salk headlines

    Newspaper headlines from around the world about polio vaccine tests (13 April 1955)

  • Village health worker checks, Zimbabwe (36273604714)

    A village health worker in Zimbabwe conducting a pediatric examination

  • A community health worker conducting a survey in the Korail slum, Bangladesh (8630810827)

    A community health worker in Korail Basti, a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh

  • Snow-cholera-map-1

    Early epidemiologist John Snow mapped clusters of cholera cases in London

  • Paul-Louis Simond injecting plague vaccine June 4th 1898 Karachi

    Paul-Louis Simond injecting a plague vaccine in Karachi, 1898

  • Children received ITNs during a school distribution in Ghana (14011793910)

    Ghanaian children receive insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent exposure to malaria transmitting mosquitos

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Salud pública para niños

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