The Public Health Approach: Population Thinking from the Black Death to COVID-19

The public health approach has evolved through trial and error over historic epidemics, focusing on population health to improve individual health outcomes. Dr. Alfredo Morabia's book explains how this approach has developed in response to major crises and reveals behavioral and social determinants of health. The COVID-19 pandemic reinforces the need for the public health approach.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 12 December 2023
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

The field of public health has developed a distinctive way of approaching human health by focusing on the health of the population to improve the health of the individual. In The Public Health Approach, Dr. Alfredo Morabia narrates the history of this population thinking and how it has helped address and combat a series of historic epidemics. Morabia explains how this approach to public health has historically developed in response to major crises like the plague, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and the COVID-19 pandemic. By comparing population health outcomes, this public health approach helps reveal and address behavioral and social determinants of health. Through these examples, Morabia demonstrates that individual health outcomes are intimately tied to the health of the population. Morabia describes how public health professionals think and respond to crises by using scientific methods that uncover patterns that would otherwise remain hidden when focused on individual health or anecdotal data. The COVID-19 pandemic—and the successes and failures surrounding our response to it—reinforces the urgent need for the public health approach. This book is an engaging primer on the history of public health and its distinctive approach to understanding and intervening in human health.

The field of public health has developed a distinctive way of approaching human health by focusing on the health of the population to improve the health of the individual.

In The Public Health Approach, Dr. Alfredo Morabia narrates the history of this population thinking and how it has helped address and combat a series of historic epidemics.

Morabia explains how this approach to public health has historically developed in response to major crises like the plague, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

By comparing population health outcomes, this public health approach helps reveal and address behavioral and social determinants of health.

Through these examples, Morabia demonstrates that individual health outcomes are intimately tied to the health of the population.

Morabia describes how public health professionals think and respond to crises by using scientific methods that uncover patterns that would otherwise remain hidden when focused on individual health or anecdotal data.

The COVID-19 pandemic—and the successes and failures surrounding our response to it—reinforces the urgent need for the public health approach.

This book is an engaging primer on the history of public health and its distinctive approach to understanding and intervening in human health.

Weight: 340g
Dimension: 151 x 229 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781421446783