Talk:Public health

Reworked the first third of the article and the lead

I have just reworked the first third of the article after I had a video call with Tom Crook where he explained some of the overarching concepts of public health (with an emphasis on the activities in Britain in the 18th and 19th century); I have cited his book in a few places now. I realised that the lead was pretty good but that much of the content of the lead was actually not really contained in the main body. This meant that the lead was not an actual summary of the article. I have tried to improved on that now. I have set up new sections (which still need to be filled more) as follows: Definitions and purposes, 1.1 Definition, 1.2 Related terms, 1.3 Purposes, 1.4 Characteristics and components, 2 Methods, 3 Priority areas, 3.1 Original focal areas, 3.2 Changing and differing focal areas. Please note I am not an expert in public health. My background is in sanitation. So forgive me if I got anything wrong, and please help me to correct anything that is wrong. EMsmile (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I have also added a paragraph to the lead which is meant to summarise the history section (not easy to do). Perhaps I put too much there now about England? Wild Bodgie please help me get the one summarising paragraph about the two history sections quite right? The lead is meant to be 4 paragraphs long and summarise the entire article. That's why I felt some summarised content about the history section ought to be in the lead as well. Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I think considering the 1933 Volksgesundhiet era of Public health this might be a good idea. I am currently going to write a small paragraph as not mentioning it is clear Holocaust denialism if this is not included as public/folk health Volksgesundheit was their central ideology from the inception of their political party in the pandemic year of 1920. Sorry to implement Godwin's law on this article during a time that the field is so heated but never forget. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.30.191.25 (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Moving history of public health to a stand alone page

I think the history of public health could be expanded a lot more than it currently is able to be sitting within this article. I think changing the currenty paragraph to a brief overview and directing to a new page "History of public health" would enable it to be extended further than it currently is (e.g. as it is currently focused on the development of public health in England).

What would people think of this? So, 1) new page for "history of public health" and then 2) changing the current paragraph to a more general overview. Jamzze (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jamzze, sorry for replying only half a year later... I am not sure if your approach would work. Keep in mind that we already have an article called history of water supply and sanitation which would overlap a fair bit with history of public health? Also, the history of public health seems to be really important to understand what it really is. Last year I had some e-mail exchanges with Virginia Berridge about this Wikipedia article. She wrote:

"It seems to me that currently it is poorly organised; is unclear what public health means; and omits much which explains why public health is as it is e.g. the post war history of the rise of lifestyle and the resurgence of epidemics; and the history of international organisations and public health agreements and targets is also notably lacking. What I’m suggesting overall is that instead of having a separate section headed history about half way through, you integrate these stages from the start- explaining how we got to where we are now-both at the national level and internationally/globally. Then you can end with an overview of the current state of play and some intellectual issues about public health." - I didn't follow up any further after that e-mail as I felt it would be difficult to "mix in" the history section that much. Hmmmm.... EMsmile (talk) 11:47, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

For five reasons I agree with the suggestion of Jamzze (talk · contribs) for the creation of a new page for 'History of public health'. They should be read in the knowledge that I am not a medic and am still learning Wikipedian editing.

First, it would confine the current article to having one objective, of explaining contemporaneous public health.

Second, it would enable visitors who want to concentrate upon understanding the history of public health to be able to do so without being distracted by its contemporaneousness.

Third, as a by-product of the previous reason, it might better enable appreciations of the contributions that the heroes and heroines of public health made to it. (I declare a particular interest in the contribution of John Snow, which piqued my interest in public health in the first place.)

Fourth, it might enable editors with a better opportunity to communicate the current state of play of public health on a better organized platform.

Fifth, it might enable more visitors to better understand public health by reducing the length of the existing page to one that is more readable. John Desmond (talk) 20:18, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

So... I think I'm in favour of *summary* and perhaps addition of high-level material (should we be able to find a source that summarizes developments in public health from a bird eye view). I am also in favour of improving the initial content once moved. Perhaps, ironically, the best way to summarize the content on the history of public health is to add *more* of it such that it begins to develop more of a high-level structure that is then easy to summarize (in an ideal world backed up with sources that operate at this high-level to minimise our original research).

However, I don't exactly agree with any of these arguments. I don't think this page should be confined to current public health because historical context can be useful in understanding what might be wrong with public health, because public health is in many ways one of the most political areas of medicine (see for example health equity, and insurance) so some societal context is of use, because we should not make too much assumptions about the reader.

I guess a good question is on what basis I am making this assessment and I'm not exaclty sure. I suppose I feel the content that exists at the moment in rather specific and arbitrary with the content of public health - but I do not feel that *high* level history is beyond scope. That's not really a policy based argument yet, so if there is disagreement we probably have to start digging into the details of WP:DUE.

John, do you have any thoughts of a *high-level* summary of the history of public health should we be able to support this with sources. This is the sort of topic I am quite interested in, but I am nervous to actually predict what I will do on wikipedia?

Talpedia 20:03, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

New image or images for the lead

Hi User:Crossroads thanks for changing the image in the lead. I agree with you. But I am wondering if this article would benefit from a 4-image collage for the lead that could show different aspects of public health. We've got such 4-image collages in the lead for a few articles by now and I think it works quite well: sustainable energy, climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, environmental impacts of animal agriculture, sewage treatment - to give some examples. By the way you can see in the talk archive an earlier discussion from 6 years ago about the image to be used in the lead. Interesting that it's so hard to get a good one. See also this unresolved discussion on the talk page of the sidebar for public health: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template_talk:Public_health_sidebar (pinging User:Jamzze) EMsmile (talk) 09:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Personally I don't think it's necessary, and it seems like it could be difficult to do. But if others want to I'm not against it. I don't think it should be represented by a pandemic though. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be useful in order to show the main "things" that are part of public health. So far we have only this one where the caption doesn't even clearly say how this is related to public health:

A community health worker in Korail Basti, a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh

I think a 2x2 image collage should for sure include one image about vaccinations. An image about mask wearing would also be OK, I think - as it's so topical nowadays. Another one could be one for an anti-smoking campaign for example.

Something representing vaccination and the historical picture about smallpox eradication could be good. I do like the community health worker picture though the caption could be tweaked. I wouldn't like a picture of masks, it's less topical than before these days and likely to only become less so; it doesn't really deserve undue weight IMO. Your suggestion of an anti-smoking campaign would be good; another possibility would be something representing clean water supply. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:30, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

I think your idea of an image representing clean water supply is good but I would modify this a bit and say it should be about sanitation, could e.g. be a photo of a sewer. There was a great article in the Lancet a while ago which showed that sanitation (sewers in that case) did wonders for public health in the UK and worldwide, see here. So I think we could have: 1 x community health worker, 1 x vaccination (I would use a current one, not a historical one), 1 x stop-smoking campaign and 1 x sanitation. That would be quite a nice spread. (or perhaps a combined one about water supply and sanitation could be found; might be hard - see e.g. at WASH). EMsmile (talk) 22:43, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

This sounds good to me. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:18, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Various aspects of public health: Clockwise from top left: Community health worker example, vaccination example, anti-smoking campaign example, sewer installation example (caption to be improved once the photos are finalised).

OK, I've now started a possible collage. The colours don't yet look great together. Do we want a vaccination image with a syringe or without (is polio not normally done with drops?). For the sewer example, do we want a historical image or a current one? Do we want from a wealthy country or a developing country? In developing countries it's not so much about sewers but more about on-site sanitation, see example images at WASH. Happy for anyone who has time to help experiment with the best photos for this. EMsmile (talk) 11:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I've changed three of the images now. I think these new photos might work better. EMsmile (talk) 09:54, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I've added the collage to the lead now. Further improvements can be made in the live article version. EMsmile (talk) 10:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Of course, as you note, if we or others want to tweak it later we can. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:45, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Historical images for inspiration purposes

For inspiration purposes, I add here the images that were previously in the lead (the last one was never in the lead but was discussed in 2016; strange that they were all "historical"). These images are all included in the main body of the article now. EMsmile (talk) 09:36, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Newspaper headlines from around the world about polio vaccine tests (13 April 1955)

Example of historical public health recommendations from 1918 in New Haven, Connecticut, United States

One of the most iconic images of public health. Mabe the magazine is even more iconic, but I'm not sure it's free.

Wiki Education assignment: Race in America, sec 1

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2024 and 24 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hxa056 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Hxa056 (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2024 (UTC)