What is Public Health?

Public health professionals work to improve the health of families, communities and populations. They develop, apply and evaluate a wide range of strategies to meet the ever-changing challenges of maintaining and promoting health. The concept of global public health recognizes that threats to health do not respect national boundaries in today's world. Global demographic shifts, population migration, global information systems, the ease of travel and global economic and trade relationships make the health of the world's people increasingly interdependent.

To confront these challenges, public health professionals must have the skills to integrate many disciplines, understand regional and national cultures, and collaborate across government, non-profit and business sectors. Well-trained public health professionals from a variety of fields — public policy, economics, law, medicine, nursing, dentistry, social work, psychology, education, journalism and anthropology, to name a few — are needed to promote the world's health.

For further information about the field of public health, see this website established by the Association of Schools of Public Health: http://www.whatispublichealth.org/about.html