Community Psychology and Public Health Approaches to Social Problems

Public health is the measures taken by the government to prevent ill health and disease. The government monitor health so that they can develop different programmes and legislation to improve the health and well being of the people in the country. They do this by attempting to solve inequalities, so that all people not matter what are able to live a healthy life. There are eight policies to improve today's public health, these are; planning for health

Ludy, B. (1986). Why don't they understand us? A history of psychology's public image. American Psychologists, 41, 941-946.

Public health as it is implicated in the lives of the community – it is important to conceptualise what this might mean. Moreover, public health has seen as a multidiscipline perspective in which it can be defined on many levels, and I find that it could be elusive to understand its meaning. By simple understanding of public health, I refer to an approach derived by Winslow (1920) and Baggott (2000).

Psychology is one of the newest sciences. Because it is the science of the mind and behavior, it is also less concrete than some of the other sciences. Over the years, social scientists have developed theories or perspectives based off of their observations, research, and the perspectives of other scientists. Although there is some overlap, each of the major perspectives of psychology is unique. As a result, they each have strengths and weaknesses and explain psychology in a different way. One theory, the sociocultural perspective, is exactly what its name suggests. It’s the idea that the society and groups that an individual belongs to are what influences development, thoughts, and behavior. The sociocultural perspective was

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" (1920, C.E.A. Winslow). This therefore infers public health is the preventing and controlling of disease within communities, to prolong life and promote health through organised society. The keys aspects of public health …

The Public Health Model and the Medical Model are two different perspectives of what health is, as well as the means of achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The Public Health Model or Ecological Health Model, as it's more appropriately called, takes into account the various external forces that can afflict or benefit a person's health. On the other hand, the Medical Model focuses on the internal forces that affect a person's health.

I am going to write a report assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the biomedical and socio-medical models of health.

Public health means so many things, in the past it was called “health for the poor”, “washing your hands”, and taking care of “vulnerable populations” (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2015 p. 4). In essence those are good definitions, but it is more than that definitions, public health is considered a

Robert explains these ideas by firstly differentiating between the old public health model and the new public health model. The old public health model is a health model that is defined by the State that takes central authority in the decision making of the health care of the entire community. The main objective of the old public health model was to protect the health of the population and prevent transmittable diseases. Robert mentions that this health model was very successful and was a huge factor in the increased life expectancies over the past century and a half.

There were contextual forces as well as work in America to foster the growth of applied psychology. The number of people with a Ph. D. in psychology rose and there were not enough academic positions to employ them, and when one attained a teaching job many administrations did not value (or fund) psychology programs. As psychology was a newest science when compared to physics and chemistry…received smallest financial support, so need to proof that psychology is useful in solving social, educational and industrial problem in order to improve budgets. An emerging societal problem was a dramatic increase in public school enrollment, which opened doors for some psychologists. Thus, the focus of psychology shifted towards the application in solving real-world problem.

The model and theories that I see that benefits public health, and fall closely into my own personal viewpoint would be the Pathways to care approach. Pathway to care theory based on two general systems of care in the United States, which are biomedical and holistic approach. According to GCU Multicultual Health Book ( 2016), “The theory of illness with which a person identifies has an impact on where he or sheseeks care. Within the United States there are two general systems of care to choosefrom: the biomedical (allopathic) approach and the holistic approach. The biomedicalapproach is often viewed as being scientific and focuses more on the physical compo-nents of illness than on the social aspects. Holistic medicine is viewed by some as

over time, due to psychologists coming to light in the modern world. This essay will also

In the primary intervention, the focus is on wellness and preventing the stressor from affecting the individual or family. An example of an outside stressor would be an acute illness, chronic illness, divorce, financial difficulties, and mental health issues. The healthy family will have lines of defense that will keep the stressor from affecting the stability of the family. In the second intervention, the focus is on restoring stability to the family after the stressor has affected them. The third intervention, maintenance of

Empathy helps a person to understand the other, and in that way, the bond between the two gets stronger. “never do what you don’t want to happen to you or a loved one” is a famous phrase that parents tell their children, so they can develop empathy from the early age. This is not the case in many crimes. Besides financial problems, the psychological problems are the ones that finish the work of the crime—to destroy the victims’ life. Realistically speaking, not all crimes’ intent is that; however, once a person’s confidence of his own safety is destroyed, second thoughts of fears and remembering the scene become more lethal that the crime’s outcome itself. When this occurs, people empathizes with the victim, especially because people worries that the same crime would happen to them, and it’s a normal reaction. The role of a society is to keep all the members of the group alive by mutual help, and to keep the weak protected from the power of the strong—in other words, to avoid the appearance of predators and victims. A crime threats this social trust people have to each other.

Before we can discuss what community psychology is, we must understand what a community is. We often view a community as a collective or randomized people, some happen to work close by, some happen to like the housing market and decided to raise a family, and some may have been in the same town for their whole lives, feeling no interest to look beyond. What is represented here, is the differences within the individuals. No two people have the same exact story, the same upbringing, the same experience. Often times, your neighbor may be nothing like you, yet you may have similarities. The similarities may come from the way you both think politically, to the teams you root for. (you notice he too, has a 12th man sticker plastered on his back windshield)