Question

Defining and Structuring Public Health

·          Identify early public health efforts.

·          Recognize the basic functions of public health.

·          Identify public health funding sources.

·          Understand relationship building in public health.

·          Understand the role of the executive branch of government in public health decision making.

·          Recognize the dimensions of public health.

·          Identify ethics and principles in public health.

·          Understand Medicare appropriation.

·          Define acts that provide guidance for public health reform.

·          Understand the process involved with passing appropriations bills.

·          Understand how public health spending is evaluated.

·          Define block grants.

·          Identify skills and competencies of a public health leader.

·          Understand transactional leadership.

·          Understand management skills.

·          Identify components of performance appraisal and performance management.

·          Define halo effect.

·          Differentiate between leadership styles.

·          Identify components of leadership styles.

Define performance effect.

Answer 1

** Many government and private agencies provide funding for public health in America. The American recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provided $1.1 billion for major expansion of comparative effectiveness research (CER). This changing landscape of government research funding has caused federal agencies such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), federal, state and local public health agencies, and also private organizations such as health insurance companies, health care delivery organizations, and pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, to organize themselves to conduct and disseminate comparative effectiveness research. This page provides an overview of some of the main funding sources for CER programs. Much of the information contained in the following sections was obtained from the publicly available website of the respective agencies and organizations.

** Basic principles and ethics of public health are:

1. Public health should address principally the fundamental causes of disease and requirements for health, aiming to prevent adverse health outcomes.
2. Public health should achieve community health in a way that respects the rights of individuals in the community.
3. Public health policies, programs, and priorities should be developed and evaluated through processes that ensure an opportunity for input from community members.
4. Public health should advocate and work for the empowerment of disenfranchised community members, aiming to ensure that the basic resources and conditions necessary for health are accessible to all.
5. Public health should seek the information needed to implement effective policies and programs that protect and promote health.

** Dimensions of public health

public health practice requires multidisciplinary teams of public health workers and professionals. Teams might include epidemiologists, biostatisticians, medical assistants, public health nurses, midwives or medical microbiologists.Depending on the need environmental health officers or public health inspectors, bioethicists, and even veterinarians might be called on.

** Halo effects

It is defined as generalization from the perception of one outstanding personality trait to an overly favorable evaluation of the whole personality.