Public Health is an empiric and multidisciplinary field whose goal is to assure conditions in which people can be healthy. While medicine mainly focuses on treating illness in separate individuals, it is the central goal of public health activities to increase health at the population level. The ruling principle of public health is to deal with the health of the population in its totality. Health interventions on the population level include community hygiene, sanitation, health education, immunization, and promotion of nutrition. Public health covers preventive, curative, and rehabilitative actions. The success of public health depends on adhering to the basic rules of equity, partnerships, and social justice, as well as the mobilization of local, national, and international resources.
In the preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), health is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of...
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Forschungsverbund Public Health Sachsen-Sachsen Anhalt e. V., Medizinische Fakultät, Technische Universität, Dresden, Germany
Natalie M. Schmitt & Jochen Schmitt
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Professor Dr. Dr., Network EUROlifestyle Research Association Public Health Saxony-Saxony Anhalt e.V. Medical Faculty, University of Technology, Fiedlerstr. 27, 01307, Dresden, Germany
Wilhelm Kirch
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Schmitt, N., Schmitt, J. (2008). Definition of Public Health . In: Kirch, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Public Health. Springer, Dordrecht. //doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5614-7_723