The focal point of public health is the safety and wellbeing of communities as a whole. Public health is a discipline where students learn and get training to protect and improve communities' overall health. Instead of dealing with only individuals, they learn different ways of promoting healthy activities and researching various aspects of public health. Public health is multi-disciplinary as it relies on knowledge from several fields. The extensive public health information allows public health professionals to address a wide range of global security and health problems.
The public health approach asserts input from various areas, including health, justice, social services, education and policy, and the private sector. Public health is a broad field and encompasses several areas. It does not deal with communities' wellbeing only but caters to other issues, such as violence prevention. Since violence is a significant threat to public wellbeing, public health workers work to prevent it. Public health principles outline the framework for investigating and understanding the causes of violence. They also focus on preventing it through primary prevention programs, policy advocacy, and interventions. The public health approach is a four-step procedure that can address different health issues and violence prevention that impact populations. Below we are giving an insight into these steps:
Step 1: Define the Problem
The first step of the public health approach is to identify and define the issue. To define a problem, public health workers gather data that can answer 'who,' 'what,' 'when,' and 'how,' when addressing the issue. They ensure that they collect information from authentic sources. The data helps in digging down deep into the gravity of various problems and defining them. Data gives insight into how frequently violence occurs, who the perpetrators and victims are and where the violence happens. Public health workers often have to work alongside police, social, and other healthcare workers. They gather information from various sources, such as police records, healthcare facility centers' charts, and population-based surveys. Data interpretation helps them to define and monitor the issue. Violence is still prevalent in modern society, and public health teaches ways of preventing it.
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Step 2: Determine Risk and Prevention Factors
The second step of the four-step approach to public health is to pinpoint risk and protective factors. After defining the problem, public health professionals need to analyze the data to identify aspects that lead to violence. They cannot prevent it only by gathering information as they need to pinpoint the hazardous factors that result in violence. Although the risk factor does not determine that violence is inevitable, it still is dangerous, and nobody can ignore the likelihood of assault. Aside from identifying risk factors, the second step also involves determining the characteristics that decrease the chances of someone becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence.
Step 3: Design and Assess Prevention Techniques
Once public health workers have completed the initial steps, they need to develop prevention strategies. The third step of the public health approach has two aspects. First, they need to establish violence prevention techniques. Then, they are required to test these approaches to evaluate their effectiveness. Public health professionals design several methods based on the acquired data and then try these techniques to assess their validity. Analysis and evaluation help them to come to a conclusion and prepare findings of different strategies. Step three of the public health approach is time-consuming and requires effort as not all plans may show effective results. Public health workers indulge in rigorous evaluations to assess designed strategies and figure out what works in preventing violence.
Step 4: Implement Effective Strategies
The final step is to implement effective strategies to eliminate the causes of violence. Public health workers administer the interventions in different settings. Communities apply these approaches and constantly assess if the techniques were a good fit to prevent assaults. The process takes time, as results do not show overnight. Implementation of these strategies in an extensive area requires training, networking, and technical assistance. Implementation of these techniques may be the last step, but it constantly needs evaluation and assessment. Violence is a significant threat to public health, and the public health approach needs to work to prevent it continuously.
Conclusion
Public health deals with different areas and works to promote the health of communities. Public health professionals conduct research and interpret data to tackle health and safety issues. These studies help identify the causes of common diseases and other wellbeing and safety issues prevalent in society. Additionally, these researches assist in determining ways of eliminating these causes and fighting them off. Public health workers work to develop models to address different social, political, historical, and economic factors that can become a reason for violence and other health problems. The public health approach is a several-step procedure and applies to various aspects of public health and violence prevention.
