Public Health Assessment

1085 Words3 Pages

The purpose of this essay is to define public health and compare it to personal health, also a discussion of benefits and disadvantages of public health. The following questions will also be answered: What are the benefits of public health assessments? What are the disadvantages, if any? Give an example of a potential conflict within the community that could arise as a result of public health assessments. How can public health advocates and policy makers prevent and/or manage such a conflict? How can public health assessments be used to form public policy? Additionally, this paper will debate the how the community has or will be affected by the smoking in public places laws. Definition and comparison According to Schneider (2006) public health is defined as the focus on maintaining the health of a community. Personal health is individualized for each person. Every individual has a free will to make their own choices when it comes to diet, exercise, sexual preferences, smoking, and family and health matters. All of these choices affect the outcome of personal health, whereas the study of a combined group or community on any one subset or commonality within this group can become a public health education or crisis. “Promoting public health requires activating health-enhancing communicative behaviors (such as interpersonal advocacy and mutual responsibility taking) in addition to individual behavioral change. To facilitate such communicative behaviors, it is imperative to first construct a new discursive environment in which to think and talk about health in a language of interdependence and collective efforts” (Ye, 2014). The use and importance of health assessments are deemed necessary in identifying and formu... ... middle of paper ... ...ntability-act/hipaa-violations-enforcement.page Edberg, M. (2007). Essentials of health behavior. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Barlett Learning Kemm, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/1/79.full Oriola, T. (2009). Ethical and legal analyses of policy prohibiting tobacco smoking in enclosed public spaces. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 37(4), 828-840 doi:10.1111/j.1748-720X.2009.00454.x Schneider, M. (2006). Introduction to public health. Jones and Barlett Publishers, LLC. Retrieved from http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763746347/46347_CH01_4849.pdf (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States Ye, S. (2014). Rethinking Public Health: Promoting Public Engagement Through a New Discursive Environment. American Journal of Public Health, 104(1), e6-e13. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301638

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