What Is Public Health  

Wanless (2018, p.27 [online]) defines public health as “the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, communities and individuals”. From this definition we can establish that the main focus of public health is to reduce health inequalities with the key concepts being to protect the public from transmissible diseases, improving service provision and to promote the health of the population (Naidoo and Wills, 2005, p.8). Health promotion and public health are intricately linked as the idea behind health promotion is to encourage individuals to have greater control over the decisions that affect their overall health.

Health is a difficult term to define as people have different perceptions of what being healthy means and it is linked to the way people live their lives. The most common definition of health was set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1948, which suggests that health is a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease