Public health has been described as the organised efforts of society to improve the health and well-being of whole populations. Putting it into practice – such as through cancer screening or vaccination programmes, controlling tobacco consumption or encouraging healthy behaviour – has had major impacts worldwide, resulting in longer, healthier lives.
Its success is clearly related to the availability and progress of medical interventions. But its success is also related to innovations in agriculture, architecture and engineering, and a deeper understanding of the social science of behaviour and many other areas. Public health is a truly multidisciplinary undertaking, which is why in Cambridge we have recently created PublicHealth@Cambridge, a Strategic Network that draws together 300 researchers from the arts, humanities, social sciences, technology and biomedicine who have an interest in public health.
The need for public health research is as great as ever. Longer life means a rise in dementia and other diseases associated with ageing. The emergence of epidemics of non-communicable disorders such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung diseases and diabetes, which kill three in five people worldwide, pose challenges in the developed and developing world alike. And, re-emerging communicable diseases, resistance and the role of infection in chronic diseases are also public health concerns.
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Image: Professor Carol Brayne CIPH
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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PublicHealth@Cambridge
2 May 2012
This month, the University of Cambridge will be profiling research that addresses public health. To begin, Professor Carol Brayne, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, explains how the goals of a new University Strategic Network, PublicHealth@Cambridge, will generate fresh insight into the health and well-being of populations.