Public Health: Foundations, Practice, and Social Determinants

Surveillance

A foundational public health practice that identifies where health issues exist using sources such as surveys, death certificates, emergency room (ER) data, disease reporting, and wastewater monitoring.

"Myth of Free Will" in Health Decisions

The recognition that a person's choices regarding health are actively constrained by external factors such as cost, proximity, and insurance.

Program-Based Evidence

The practice of tracking whether a specific public health intervention actually works rather than simply assuming it does.

Upstream Metaphor

A public health framework urging practitioners to focus on prevention and structural causes—summarized as fixing the bridge rather than merely pulling people out of the river.

Three Core Functions of Public Health

Assessment, policy development, and assurance; these categories describe what public health does.

Equality vs. Equity

Equality provides everyone with the exact same resource or treatment, whereas equity provides everyone with what they specifically need to participate.

Misinformation vs. Disinformation

Misinformation is inaccurate information shared without intent to cause harm, whereas disinformation is false information deliberately shared to deceive or manipulate.

Three Public-Health Workforce Tiers

The tiers of public health personnel: frontline and program support; program management and supervisory; and senior management and executive leadership.

Ten Essential Public Health Services

A framework describing activities that should take place in all communities, rather than a claim that they always occur.

Essential Service 1: Assess and Monitor

An assessment function focused on monitoring health status and factors that influence health, as well as identifying community needs and assets (e.g., tracking water quality or immunization rates).

Essential Service 2: Investigate, Diagnose, and Address

An assessment function dedicated to investigating, diagnosing, and addressing health problems and hazards affecting populations (e.g., conducting a tuberculosis investigation).

Essential Service 3: Communicate Effectively

A policy development function centered on communicating effectively to inform and educate communities about health and influencing factors.

Essential Service 4: Strengthen Communities and Partnerships

A policy development function focused on strengthening, supporting, and mobilizing communities and partnerships to improve health.

Essential Service 5: Create Policies, Plans, and Laws

A policy development function dedicated to creating, championing, and implementing health-related policies, plans, and laws.

Essential Service 6: Legal and Regulatory Action

A policy development function that utilizes legal and regulatory action to protect public health, including inspections and professional licensure.

Essential Service 7: Assure Equitable Access

An assurance function aimed at assuring equitable access to effective systems and needed healthcare and social services.

Essential Service 8: Diverse and Skilled Workforce

An assurance function focused on building and supporting a diverse, skilled public health workforce.

Essential Service 9: Evaluation and Quality Improvement

An assurance function focused on improving and innovating public health functions through continuous evaluation, research, and quality improvement.

Essential Service 10: Strong Organizational Infrastructure

An assurance function centered on building and maintaining a strong organizational infrastructure for public health operations.

Mental Health

A state of emotional, psychological, and social well-being that affects how people think, feel, act, handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.

Mental Illness

Health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking, or behavior that are associated with distress and/or difficulty functioning.