Public Health/Society and Culture

Introduction
Public health is an important objective for society and public health awareness and literacy in society can help to mitigate the risk. Also cultural determinants can have an impact on public health of communities and the population.

Education and training
Education and training of public health professionals is available throughout the world in Schools of Public Health, Medical Schools, Veterinary Schools, Schools of Nursing, and Schools of Public Affairs. The training typically requires a university degree with a focus on core disciplines of biostatistics, epidemiology, health services administration, health policy, health education, behavioral science, gender issues, sexual and reproductive health, public health nutrition, and occupational and environmental health.

In the global context, the field of public health education has evolved enormously in recent decades, supported by institutions such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank, among others. Operational structures are formulated by strategic principles, with educational and career pathways guided by competency frameworks, all requiring modulation according to local, national and global realities. It is critically important for the health of populations that nations assess their public health human resource needs and develop their ability to deliver this capacity, and not depend on other countries to supply it.

Schools of public health: a US perspective
In the United States, the Welch-Rose Report of 1915 has been viewed as the basis for the critical movement in the history of the institutional schism between public health and medicine because it led to the establishment of schools of public health supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The report was authored by William Welch, founding dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Wickliffe Rose of the Rockefeller Foundation. The report focused more on research than practical education. Some have blamed the Rockefeller Foundation's 1916 decision to support the establishment of schools of public health for creating the schism between public health and medicine and legitimizing the rift between medicine's laboratory investigation of the mechanisms of disease and public health's nonclinical concern with environmental and social influences on health and wellness.

Even though schools of public health had already been established in Canada, Europe and North Africa, the United States had still maintained the traditional system of housing faculties of public health within their medical institutions. A $25,000 donation from businessman Samuel Zemurray instituted the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in 1912 conferring its first doctor of public health degree in 1914. The Yale School of Public Health was founded by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow in 1915. The Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was founded in 1916 and became an independent, degree-granting institution for research and training in public health, and the largest public health training facility in the United States. By 1922, schools of public health were established at Columbia and Harvard on the Hopkins model. By 1999 there were twenty nine schools of public health in the US, enrolling around fifteen thousand students.

Over the years, the types of students and training provided have also changed. In the beginning, students who enrolled in public health schools typically had already obtained a medical degree; public health school training was largely a second degree for medical professionals. However, in 1978, 69% of American students enrolled in public health schools had only a bachelor's degree.

Degrees in public health
Schools of public health offer a variety of degrees generally fall into two categories: professional or academic. The two major postgraduate degrees are the Master of Public Health (MPH) or the Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH). Doctoral studies in this field include Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in a subspecialty of greater Public Health disciplines. DrPH is regarded as a professional degree and PhD as more of an academic degree.

Professional degrees are oriented towards practice in public health settings. The Master of Public Health, Doctor of Public Health, Doctor of Health Science (DHSc/DHS) and the Master of Health Care Administration are examples of degrees which are geared towards people who want careers as practitioners of public health in health departments, managed care and community-based organizations, hospitals and consulting firms, among others. Master of Public Health degrees broadly fall into two categories, those that put more emphasis on an understanding of epidemiology and statistics as the scientific basis of public health practice and those that include a more wide range of methodologies. A Master of Science of Public Health is similar to an MPH but is considered an academic degree (as opposed to a professional degree) and places more emphasis on scientific methods and research. The same distinction can be made between the DrPH and the DHSc. The DrPH is considered a professional degree and the DHSc is an academic degree.

Academic degrees are more oriented towards those with interests in the scientific basis of public health and preventive medicine who wish to pursue careers in research, university teaching in graduate programs, policy analysis and development, and other high-level public health positions. Examples of academic degrees are the Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Science (ScD), and Doctor of Health Science (DHSc). The doctoral programs are distinct from the MPH and other professional programs by the addition of advanced coursework and the nature and scope of a dissertation research project.

Notable people

 * John Graunt (1620–1674) was a British citizen scientist who laid the foundations for epidemiology.
 * Edward Jenner (1749–1823) created the smallpox vaccine, the first vaccine in the world. He is often known as "the father of immunology."
 * Benjamin Waterhouse (1753–1846) introduced the smallpox vaccine in the United States.
 * Lemuel Shattuck (1793–1859) has been described as an "architect" and "prophet" of American public health
 * John Snow (1813-1858) was 'the father of modern epidemiology'.
 * Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819–1891) created a sewer network for central London in response to the Great Stink of 1858. This proved instrumental in relieving the city from cholera epidemics.
 * Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) conducted research that laid the foundation for our understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases.
 * Robert Koch (1843–1910) used his discoveries to establish that germs "could cause a specific disease" and directly provided proofs for that germ theory of diseases, therefore creating the scientific basis of public health, saving millions of lives.
 * Charles V. Chapin (1856–1941) public health advocate and researcher credited with planting "the roots of quality in public health" in the United States
 * Sara Josephine Baker (1873–1945) was an "instrumental force in child and maternal health"
 * Nora Wattie (1900–1994) led the development of public health services and sanitation, and education in improving women and child health in the poorest slums of Glasgow, for which she received the OBE.
 * Jonas Salk (1914–1995) developed one of the first polio vaccines and campaigned vigorously for mandatory vaccinations.
 * Ruth Huenemann (1910–2005) She became a pioneer in the study of childhood obesity in the 1960s studying the diet and exercise habits of Berkeley teenagers.
 * Edmond Fernandes ( 1990-) Demonstrated proof of concept to end the burden of Malnutrition in India and around the world.
 * Dilip Mahalanabis - Credited to have evolved and utilized ORS to save thousands of lives during the liberation war.