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

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

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.

• 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
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/829896
• Publisher URL: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Public-Health-Curious-Decision-Making-Scholarships-ebook/dp/B013ZFPOXO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
• Contract Date: Aug 1, 2015