The Concept of Public Health Awareness and It's Importance

Awareness of public health among public is significant to aid and prolong life through prevention of health issues, to detect health issues as early as possible and respond appropriately to avoid the development of disease and ensure everyone is aware of health hazards. In “Why public health awareness is important?” essay we will take a closer look on this question. 

The whole world is shaken and shocked with the abrupt and life threatening wave of corona virus. Many countries and individuals around the globe are affected with the outbreak let them be educated or not have realised the importance of public health. Do we really need life loss and total shutdown to realise and educate ourselves with public health let it be on its awareness or just its significance alone? With the conjunction of the new norm around us, I am pretty sure that my speech today will leave a positive mark on everyone’s heart as its importance is so much understood and realised by the public. According to World Health Organization (WHO) dated on 17th January 2021, there has been 95 million of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide including 2 million of death cases. Even the fatality rate due to corona virus is reported to be 2.07%, on the bright side the recovery rate is 74.90% worldwide. After conducting my research on this subject of matter, I strongly felt that people are lack of public health awareness towards outbreak of chronic disease due to the changes in the societal behaviours and advancement of lifestyle. This reckless behaviour of public had led this outbreak of disease to go outhand. I agree that by educating and giving proper knowledge on public health is useful in preventing diseases. As a science student, this is my initiative to raise awareness on the importance of public health and persuade my fellow audience to practice public health in their life.

Public health is crucial in aiding and prolonging life through the prevention of health issues, where individuals can spend more of their years in good health. According to CDC Foundation, public health is defined as the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities through promoting healthy lifestyle, researching disease and injury prevention dan detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. A study published by Harvard Medical School in their Harvard Health Publishing in the year 2018, it is proven that people who live a healthy lifestyle is expected to have a higher life expectancy. Thus, individuals should refrain from participating in harmful health habits such as smoking, and alcohol intake that are thought to be correlated with a decline in life expectancy and an earlier incidence of disabilities.

Basic knowledge and understanding about risky health behaviours since small, allows public to make informed choices about their own lifestyles. According to the study by the BMC Psychology in 2014 in Germany, it is proven that all lifestyle factors are related with mental health outcomes. Better mental health seems to link with higher physical and mental activity, healthy consumption of food intake and a regular life rhythm. Basic healthy lifestyles such as maintaining a healthy diet, doing physical activity, limiting the consumption of smoking and drinking alcohol, drinking a lot water and being consistent with the habits can help to feel physically, mentally and emotionally better. The importance of these healthy lifestyle could be brought in light to the audience by various ways such as applying at home with family, implementing in school syllabus, spreading information online through social medias and etc.

Thus, it is important for us to be in a good health state and positive to spend more years with the loved ones. Now allow me to move on to the second point of the importance of public health. Public health detects health issues as early as possible and responds appropriately to avoid the developmental of disease. Prevention is far more effective and far less expensive than cure. Prevention means stopping problems from arising within the first place; focusing on keeping people healthy, but not just treating them once they become ill. During ancient times, diseases or epidemics were believed to be caused by “miasma theory” which is an obsolete medical theory stating that disease such a cholera and black death were caused by bad air. Failure in detecting the health issues had led to deaths of millions where people could not identify the causes of the deaths exactly. The rapid advances in scientific understanding of the causes and prevention of various diseases have contributed to enormous improvements in public health. Science applied in public health had played a huge role in controlling the severity of many major contagious diseases. The development of immunization and water purification techniques provided a means of controlling and preventing the spread of diseases. Research on knowledge, attitude and behaviour in the context of a pandemic can not only guide communication and mitigation strategies, but can also inform future pandemic preparedness planning. Early knowledge about the disease outbreak will help to understand the risk behaviour and assist the public in responding quickly to the outbreak. This is to increase community health awareness on personal hygiene and safety measures and reduces the fear of the spread of disease. It is critically necessary to detect infectious diseases early and accurately because diagnosis will increase the efficiency of medications and prevent long-term complications. According to the journal by Sandra Lee, Hui Huang dan Marvin Zelen on Early Detection of Disease and Scheduling of Screening Examination in the year 2004, they concluded that the early detection of disease may lead to more cures or longer survival. Therefore, public health programs are conducted periodically to encourage the public to have periodic screening examinations to detect specific chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Vaccines also important as it is to protect our children and ourselves against infectious diseases such as smallpox, tetanus, measles, and etc. According to an article in NSH, it stated that up to 3 million deaths worldwide can be prevented by vaccinating. Therefore, parents should make sure their children are vaccinated to keep them healthy and protected.

Prevention is always better than cure. Next, we should be always be alert on latest news and the precautionary measure taken by the government to maintain our health. Let us further discuss more the importance of awareness of public health among public. Ensures everyone is aware of health hazards through educational programme, campaign and through influencing government policies. Public awareness campaign involves a large range of communication method and programs involving health promotion engage in to disseminate appropriate health information to the society. Campaigns are designed to influence public knowledge, attitude and behaviours. For example, our Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM) have initiated programmes such as Young Doctors Programme, Program Sihat Untuk Remaja (PROSTAR), MyHEALTH portal, Healthy Lifestyle Campaign, Communication for Behavioural Impact (COMBI), Quit Smoking Clinic and Know Your Medicine. Effective communication campaigns are strategically designed and implemented so that they match the interests and abilities of the audience to gain their trusts. For instance, The Truth Initiative have engaging through vibrant ads and messaging to stop teens from smoking. Besides in the year 2009 the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched “Get Yourself Tested”, a public health campaign to encourage young adults to get tested and treated for HIV, AIDS and STDs. Modern campaigns use mass media such as newspapers, radio, television to convey messages to large and diverse public. This way of channelling information has the ability to reach many people over a vast geographic distances. Mere exposure to relevant health information will lead directly to desired changes in health-related behaviours. When there are disparities in the dissemination of information as well as access to the media, this causes lack in knowledge with regards to pandemics and their preparedness. Public health makes the individuals of society take the responsibility of taking care of each other’s health. Health campaigns are designed to raise awareness about important health issues and encourage public to engage in healthy behaviours that provide resistance to serious health threats. These behaviours include exercising regularly, opting proper nutrition and stress-reduction methods by avoiding toxigenic substances such as poisons and carcinogens. Providing accurate and correct information during public health emergencies is a fundamental modality of outbreak control strategies. The most effective reliable source for information would be the Government and the most effective platform would be social medias such as YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. For example we Malaysian have access to the Ministry of Health’s website and social media platforms where the accurate and correct information are updated to the public time to time.

In conclusion, I hope through this campaign everyone here has benefited with the importance of public health awareness to a prolong life, early detection of health issues and aware of health issues through educational programme. We cannot deny the fact that the fatality rate is increasing day by day. The best way to stop this pattern from continuing and progressing by ripping innocent lives away is to get the public educated with public health awareness. This is not a thing which can be done in a day but as a whole nation we need to fight for a future which is free from health issues. We need to see a greater investment in prevention to support people to live longer, healthier and more independent lives. Therefore, I call upon the responsible citizens in Malaysia to educate yourself, understand the importance, always keep yourself updated with latest healthcare news and always be precaution about disease by practicing a healthy and hygienic lifestyle. For instance, especially during this pandemic, citizens should always be stay connected with the government and their updates in their official websites or social medias and comply with them. We must encourage our family and friends to practise healthy lifestyle in daily basis and educate the upcoming generations. Lastly more activities and information should implement in the school syllabus for the children as compulsory early education.