Middle East Public Health

Public health is the science and practice of protecting and improving the health of a community by education, disease and injury prevention, wellness promotion, and health protection. From scientific research to health education, the field of public health strives to improve lives and social conditions that affect the health of a community. It is because of public health that we understand that second-hand smoke can cause cancer, that bicycle helmets can save lives, and that unclean water can carry disease-causing bacteria.

The overall health of a community is affected by social, cultural and economic factors. Health experts explore all aspects of people’s lives in order to fully expose and gauge the multitude of issues that impact community wellness. Public health practitioners are especially qualified as policy advocates and to promote behavioral change and wellness practices. While medical practitioners are interested in the health of individual patients, public health practitioners are interested in the health of the community as a whole. As former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote, "health care is vital to all of us some of the time, but public health is vital to all of us all of the time." Reports in this category will include those aimed at pharmaceutical marketers and diagnostic marketers or those related to health statistics.