What is Public Health?
Ask "What is public health?" and you'll hear many different answers. But perhaps the most direct is: Public health is your health. The public is not an abstract population on the other side of town or the other side of the world. It is you, your family and friends, and everyone you know.
Public health is about reducing incidences of preventable suffering, minimizing the consequences of catastrophic events, and providing the basics of sanitation and safe food and water. All the factors that determine your health—biological, behavioral, and environmental—are the domain of public health. By promoting healthy behavior, preventing disease, and protecting communities, public health initiatives help contain the costs society pays for health care.
Today, public health necessarily takes a global view. In our increasingly interconnected world, disease, tainted food, and unsafe products cross oceans and borders with unprecedented ease. Poor sanitation and a lack of health resources in distant places ultimately affect the health of Americans.
We all have a stake in the future of public health. Investing public health benefits everyone. Support for new facilities and expanded programs at Berkeley will further strengthen one of the true pillars of America's public health infrastructure.
For more about public health, visit the "What is Public Health?" web site
