Public Health

Unit 12 - P1

There are many different strategies developed by the government to monitor and care for the health of its people. These strategies help the public to live a healthy lifestyle and lead towards the betterment of their health. For example, the key aspects in the UK are;

• Monitoring health status of the population

This means keeping word on where problems occur mostly in the population. When a health problem is located, the population need to be made aware of it. For example, the number of people that are becoming overweight and obese, are being tracked. This means that people can be made aware of what is going on and hopefully some changes can be put in place, not only to decrease the number of people becoming overweight, but also to improve individual’s health needs. The government has a national idea to overcome obesity – called Health Starts. This is to make sure younger people and families are exercising as much as the daily requirements and also eating healthy to avoid becoming obese.

• Identifying health needs

Once the problem of the source has been identified, the government and services can sus out what the impact may be. This means that in the case of obesity, as it rises and more people are diagnosed with the disease, services such as diabetes screening will need to be put into place as they are normally linked either linked with people who have low sugar level/high sugar level, or are overweight.  

• Developing programmes to reduce risk/screen for disease early on

Health services will need to introduce new screenings, tests and schemes to identify people that could be at risk. They are there to make sure that the conditions and symptoms are found early on in the programme, to prevent the illness becoming even more major, and possibly prevent any illnesses happening. For example, a person with obesity may not now that their obese, they may think they are on the borderline, but when they are told they are obese, they will want to lose weight and become a better person with a healthier lifestyle.

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