The document outlines six key public health functions: 1. Surveillance, analysis, and evaluation of population health status and environmental health problems. 2. Developing policies and plans to support individual and community health efforts to address identified problems. 3. Health promotion through education and preventive measures. 4. Disease prevention through high-risk and population-wide approaches at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. 5. Developing effective health programs and facilities to protect health. 6. Evaluating public health policies, strategies, and facilities.

1. M-4: Public Health Functions
Rashid Mureed
Email: rashid.Mureed@cepal.pk

2. Public Health Functions
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M-4: Public Health
Function

3. Public Health Function-I
 Surveillance, analysis and evaluation of population’s health status
 Diagnose and investigate health problems in the community
 Diagnose and investigate environmental health problems and health
hazards in the community
 Act as quickly as possible with efficacy in solving and improving these
problems
 Monitor environmental and health status and solve community
environmental health problems
 Monitor health status or community health problems
Example:
The Spanish National Health Survey detects tobacco/smoking as a public
health problem
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M-4: Public Health
Function

4.  Develop policies and plans that support individual and
community health efforts
Once the health problem is identified, public health seeks the best
interventions and strategies to solve the public health problem and
identify health and/or social actors or agents that can be carried out
in the best way possible
Example:
Identify effective policies that reduce the number of smokers in the
society
Public Health Function-II
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M-4: Public Health
Function

5.  Health Promotion
This is a public health function that tries to promote the health
of the population, educating in health from the different health,
education and mass media facilites
Example:
Implementation of preventive measures to advantage smoking -
free areas
Awareness-raising campaign in all the society sectors
Public Health Function-III
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M-4: Public Health
Function

6.  Disease Prevention
There are two strategies to address diseases prevention, the
high risk approach and the population approach
 High risk approach
The high risk approach is aimed at individuals particularly
predisposed to an illness and an individual prevention manner
is offered to them
 Population approach
The population approach attempt to control the factors of the
population as a whole without focusing on a specific collective matter
Public Health Function-IV
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M-4: Public Health
Function

7.  Disease Prevention (2)
 There are three levels of prevention
 Primary Prevention: to intervene before a disease appears
 Secondary Prevention: to intervene in pre-symptomatic phases
 Tertiary Prevention: to intervene when the individual is already ill. Try to mitigate the
effects of disease
Public Health Function-IV
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M-4: Public Health
Function

8.  To develop effective programs and health facilities to protect
health
The development and implementation of programmes that promote
health improvement of the population as a whole, with the condition that
they are based on efficacy scientific evidence based and that they
help to increase the population’s quality of life
Example:
To develop health programmes aimed to help smokers to give
up smoking and health facilities with this specific function
Public Health Function-V
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M-4: Public Health
Function

9.  Evaluation of public health policies, strategies and facilities
Having just implemented, whatever process included in society to
solve or improve the health problems must be evaluated, to check its
right performance and functioning and analyse if it is associated with an
improvement of the health problems for which were developed
Example:
To evaluate the effect caused by the implementation and
programmes on the number of smokers
Public Health Function-VI
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M-4: Public Health
Function

10. Federal Public Health
Responsibilities
 Ensure all levels of government have the capabilities to provide essential
public health services
 Act when health threats may span more than one province, a region, or
the entire nation
 Act where the solutions may be beyond the jurisdiction of individual
province
 Act to assist the province when they lack the expertise or resources to
effectively respond in a public health emergency (e.g., a disaster, or an
emerging disease)
 Facilitate the formulation of public health goals (in collaboration with
provinces and local governments and other relevant stakeholders)
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11. Other Roles of Federal Public
Health
Federal government plays a crucial role in
 Providing leadership, through regulatory powers, in setting health
Goals
Policies
Standards
Contributing operational and financial resources
Financing research and higher education
Supporting the development of scientific and technological tools needed to
improve the effectiveness of public health infrastructure at all levels
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12. “…The determinants of health are beyond the capacity of any one
practitioner or discipline to manage….We must collaborate to survive, as
disciplines and as professionals attempting to help our communities and
each other.”
—Institute of Medicine, 1999
Nongovernmental Organizations
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13. “It is logical to expect that there is strength in numbers and that
partnerships can mobilize material and human resources and be more
effective at achieving desired goals than individuals working alone.”
– Karen Glanz, Health Behavior and Health Education, 2002
Nongovernmental Organizations
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14. A Well-Functioning Public Health
System Has..
 Strong partnerships where partners recognize they are part of the public
health system
 Effective channels of communication
 System-wide health objectives
 Resource sharing
 Leadership by governmental public health agency
 Feedback loops among state, local, tribal, territorial, and federal partners
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15. Our goal is an integrated system of
partnerships
Federal NRSD
Provincial Health Departments
Local Health Departments
Pharma Companies
NGO’s & Pvt. Org.
Law
Enforcement
Community
Services
Environmental
Health
Healthcare
Providers
Philanthropy
Mosques
Transportation
Businesses
Media Schools
Mental
Health
Community
Coalitions
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16. 22 February 2020M-3: Public Health