Public health covers three key areas:
- Health Improvement: Involves work to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities by promoting healthy lifestyle changes e.g. helping people to quit smoking, improving their living conditions, or promoting healthy eating, but also tackling underlying issues like poverty and reduced access to healthcare.
- Health Protection: Involves ensuring the safety and quality of the environment, food, and water, preventing the spread of communicable disease, and managing outbreaks e.g. pandemic flu, or addressing the health effects of climate change in the UK or abroad.
- Healthcare: Helping to ensure that health and care services are fit-for-purpose and accessible by all sectors of the population.
Health inequality means that the university doesn’t all start with the same chance in life. The need to recognize public health needs has never been so important.
The diverse nature of public health means that no day is the same. From interviewing students about drug and alcohol addiction or creating a campaign about exercise and nutrition in a poor area of the UK to writing a report to inform a government about the rare diseases in a developing country.
They will gain the practical skills needed in real situations, from taking part in simulated scenarios and community-based research to creating reports, presentations, and demonstrations to present to panels and judges.
