Importance of public health in low- and middle- income countries

Pant, Puspa Raj; van Teijlingen, Edwin; Simkhada, Padam

Authors

Puspa Pant Puspa.Pant@uwe.ac.uk
Research Fellow (SAFETRIP Nepal)

Edwin van Teijlingen

Padam Simkhada

Contributors

Kishor Vaidya
Editor

Abstract

One might ask you questions on why should we care about health of other people, especially that of other countries? Why should global health matter in courses run in developed countries? Why should global health matter those live in developed countries? Public Health is both an academic discipline (to study the health of the population) and a way of practice that cover a wide range of aspects including health protection, disease prevention, needs assessment, health promotion, health surveillance, and health planning. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) “public health refers to all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole …to provide conditions in which people can be healthy and focus on entire populations, not on individual patients or diseases.” In other words, public health is concerned with (a) all people in a population, be it a community a region and (b) fighting/coping with all diseases and illnesses together. These general principles of public health are not different in a high-income country from a low-income country (LMIC). What differs are the nature of the most prevalent diseases, the set-up and environments, reach and quality of the health care system and the population. This chapter will give you an overview of public health, importance of global health, and career prospects with particular reference to low- and middle- income countries, using Nepal as an example.

Citation

Pant, P. R., van Teijlingen, E., & Simkhada, P. (2015). Importance of public health in low- and middle- income countries. In K. Vaidya (Ed.), Public Health for the Curious: Why Study Public Health?The Curious Academic Publishing

Acceptance Date	Aug 1, 2015
Publication Date	Aug 15, 2015
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Book Title	Public Health for the Curious: Why Study Public Health?
ISBN	9781925128581
Keywords	public health, low-income country, higher education
Publisher URL	http://www.amazon.co.uk/Public-Health-Curious-Decision-Making-Scholarships-ebook/dp/B013ZFPOXO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8