Intiatives relating to old public health

Intiatives associated with old public health

• Improved water and sanitation

• Better quality housing and fewer slums

• Better quality food and nutrition

• Introduction of quarantine laws

• Safer working conditions

• More hygienic birthing practices

• Provision of antenatal and ingant welfare serves

• Mass immunisation programs

‘Old’ Public health

worked to primarily prevent infectious diseases and injuries by focusing on the more physical environment.

The benefits of ‘old’ public health are still experienced to this day.

Old public health refers to government actions that focused on changing the physical environment to prevent the spread of disease, such as providing safe water, sanitation and sewage disposal, improved nutrition, improved housing conditions and better work conditions

Clean drinking water was provided

Improved water and sanitation means people were provided safe water to drink. This reduces the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid, therefore a reduction in improved infant and child mortality rates.

Sewage systems were established and sanitation was improved

Sweage systems help keep human waste that contains pathogens seperated from water supplies, and garbage and waste were removed from the streets. This resulted in the reduction of infectious diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.

Improved food and nutrition

Food often transmitted diseases from bacteria, parasites, toxins due to poor hygiene and storage. Intiatives to improve food and nutritents such as the Pure Food Act in 1905 brought about improvement in the safety and standards of food. This lead to improved nutrition intake, thus decrease the prevalance of infectious diseases such as cholera.

Intiatives to improve food and nutrients include public health campaigns to promote the importance of food hygeine and the importance of fruit and vegetables. This lead to improved nutrition intake, thus reduce the risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases such as cholera.

Improved working conditions

Workplaces had to have better ventilsation and toilets for workers as poor ventilation promote the spread of viruses and bacteria in the air. This removes harmful pathogens, therefore decreases the risk of infectious diseases.

Old public health included intiatives to improve working conditions where factories and offices may have poor ventilation where prolonged exposure to pollutants such as toxic gases and fumes can cause lung diseases and asthma.

Mass immunisation programs

Mass immunisation rpogram were made possible old public health intiatives where the government funded mass vaccinations for diseases such as whooping cough, polio and tuberculosis. This resulted in the reduction from infectious diseases such as polio, whooping cough and tubercolosis, as such improve life expectancy and reduce infant mortality rates.