Public health improves well-being in countless ways: safety, clean water, healthy lifestyles, clinical trials, accessible health care and so much more.
This issue of Carolina Public Health magazine discusses why the world needs public health. A related question that I answer often in my role as dean is, “What is public health?”
I’m always tempted to respond: “What isn’t?”
After three years of living in a pandemic, many people identify public health through epidemiology. Yes! Creating vaccines and sharing masking guidance are essential public health tasks. However, that’s not all epidemiologists do, nor does it represent the whole of this field.
Public health is also keeping workers safe on the job, improving traffic patterns to reduce car wrecks, getting healthy food to hungry kids, testing street drugs for dangerous additives and planning ahead to mitigate the effects of climate change.
And that’s not nearly all. We also make birth safer, ensure communities have clean drinking water, design well-run clinical trials, support people through healthy lifestyle changes and advocate for policies that mean everyone can visit a health care provider when they need to.
If any of these examples surprises you, you’re not alone. Public health is so all-encompassing that I genuinely believe it touches every other field — not only the health sciences, like medicine, pharmacy and dentistry, but also chemistry, communications, city planning and more.
Here is the ultimate goal of public health: We want people to lead safe and healthy lives. That means instead of investing directly in patient care, public health invests in improving well-being.
Here’s one example of the public health mindset, explained beautifully by Master of Public Health student Callia Cox, who is studying to become a registered dietitian:
“I realized in order to effectively help people eat better, I had to gain the skills to figure out each individual’s top priority. Someone worrying about eviction just can’t focus on getting more vegetables in their diet.”
This approach of addressing people’s most pressing needs first is why, to my mind, public health is the foundational layer in the pyramid of overall health and well-being. Our work creates a sturdy base upon which individuals and whole societies can then build additional layers, such as increasing generational wealth, exploring self-care and enjoying long, fulfilling lives.
As the pandemic reaches a different phase, many people are turning their gaze away from public health. We are, however, still in the middle of multiple crises: systemic racism, poor mental health and opioid misuse, to name a few. Our work is by no means done.
As the epic quest to achieve health and well-being for all continues on a global scale, I am reinvigorated every day by what I witness all around me at the Gillings School.
When a student tests water samples for toxins in one of our labs, when a staff member connects a worried parent with community resources, when a faculty researcher presents evidence to support a national policy change — this is public health in action.
For me, these efforts are also the source of boundless hope.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier
Dean and Bryson Distinguished Professor in Public Health
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
