Applied Public Health Essentials
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Public health—the science and art of disease prevention and health promotion—remains significant in the advances of medical and health sciences in ameliorating the health of the population. The contributions of public health to the health of the U.S. population has been remarkable in the 21st century, and it continues to be so as public health confronts emerging challenges due to the aging U.S. population, climate changes, global warming, bioterrorism, and emerging pathogenic microbes. Remarkably, the epidemiologic transition from infectious diseases as the leading cause of mortality in 1900s to chronic diseases today came as a result of persistent immunization, the reduction in vaccine-preventable diseases, and improvements in sanitation and nutrition—even before the streptomycin trials in mycobacterium tuberculae in 1947—thanks to public health contributions. Illustratively, public health achievements in the 21st century are viewed in light of their contributions to motor vehicle safety, safer workplaces, infectious disease control, decline in coronary artery disease and stroke mortality, safer and healthier food, healthier mothers and babies, family planning, fluorination of drinking water, vaccination, and recognition of tobacco as a health hazard.
The scope of public health is broad and reflects what we, as a society, do collectively to ensure the conditions necessary for people to remain healthy. Within this scope, the framework for public health performance recommends the collaboration between governmental agencies (federal, state, and local), public and private sectors, and the communities. The Institute of Medicine, in its 1988 response to “public health in disarray,” clearly described the core functions of public health as (1) assessment, (2) policy development, and (3) assurance. The process upon which public health carries out these functions requires the integration of its core functions into the essential public health services, namely, (1) health services monitoring and identification of community health needs; (2) diagnoses and investigation of health problems and health hazards in the community; (3) informing, educating, and empowering people about health issues; (4) mobilizing community partnerships to identify and solve health problems; (5) enforcing laws and regulations that protect and ensure safety; (6) linking people with needed personal health services and ensuring the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable; (7) ensuring a competent public health and personal health care workforce; (8) evaluating effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of personal and population-based health services; and (9) researching new insights and innovative solutions to health problems.
The training of public health professionals to address the essential public health services requires a curriculum that integrates the core functions of public health into the core disciplines of public health, mainly (1) epidemiology, (2) biostatistics, (3) behavioral and social sciences, (4) environmental sciences, and (5) management and policy sciences. The knowledge of these areas and the application of cross-cutting core competencies (such as communication and informatics, diversity and culture, animal control, public health biology and pathology, professionalism, programs planning, and systems thinking) serve to provide the graduates of public health programs with the preparation (knowledge and skills) needed to succeed in this field today.
This novel textbook very clearly and simply explains and illustrates the gene as DNA sequence and environment interaction in disease causation and preventive modalities. The understanding of several environments such as toxic waste, air pollutants, nutritional imbalance, physical inactivity, stress and isolation, discrimination, racism, etc. allows for community and public health intervention mapping and individual and population health improvement and optimization.
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Laurens Holmes Jr. was trained in Internal Medicine, specializing in Immunology and Infectious Diseases prior to his expertise in epidemiology (cancer)-with- biostatistics (survival analysis). Over the past two decades, Dr. Holmes had been working in cancer epidemiology, control & prevention. His involvement in Biostatistical/ modeling of health research data includes signal amplification and stratification in risk modelling, evidence discovery through effect size and confidence interval (not p value) and evidence-based clinical and translational research through Quantitative Evidence Synthesis (QES).
Dr Holmes, has more than 9 years of experience as a reviewer of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) questions. During this period, he taught quantitative medicine (epidemiology, biostatistics), among other courses, such as immunology, infectious Disease, Oncology and was responsible for both the summative and formative examination preparation materials for the medical schools in the Caribbean.
At the International University of the Health Sciences (IUHS) in St. Kitts, Holmes directed the assessment for the basic medical sciences and clinical correlates and managed more than 18,000 questions in the examination bank. He was responsible for preparing the summative examination of 350 questions for every organ-system in the USMLE learning objectives, and these examinations were offered every 3 months at IUHS. Holmes also wrote review questions for immunology and infectious diseases, quantitative medicine (epidemiology and biostatistics), preventive medicine, behavioral sciences, geriatrics, and pharmacology.
In the State of Delaware, at University of Delaware, College of Health Sciences, Dr. Holmes initiated Clinical Trials and Molecular Epidemiology in 2008, and taught these courses prior to directing clinical and translational research in Wisconsin. Dr. Holmes directed clinical and translational science education and research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, and taught medical students and residents research methodology, clinical statistics as “Clinstats “ epidemiology and clinical trials.
Regarding epigenomic modulations in individuals and population-based disease process, therapeutics, prognosis, survival and mortality, Dr. Holmes initiated this perspective, in examine several environments with respect to disease process. Currently, he is involved in assessing how environmental interaction with respect to subpopulations predispose to HTn, T2DM and several malignant neoplasm. Since environmental differentials, such as Ozone (O3) as toxic radicals in air pollutants, there is a need for public health professionals to initiatives substantial studies, as epigenomic public health in community health improvement and optimization.
At Delaware State University, Public & Allied Health Sciences Department, where he no longer affiliates with the MPH program, but developed the courses on graduate level Epidemiology and Global Health. Dr. Holmes is currently the Distinguished Professor, Institute of Public Health, FAMU, Tallahassee, Florida.
