Public Health 20th Century

In a review of the Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the 20th Century, the prevention, and control of infectious disease stands out as most significant. Selecting this achievement above the others by no means discredits the historical importance of the remaining nine rather it was elected based on both personal interest and concern. Admittedly, I aim to keep my personal life private; thus, I commonly refrain from interjecting it into academic discussions, yet given the context of the question it helps to explain the reason this achievement was selected. As a gay male who came out at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s, I would come to have a front row seat in which, I played witness to the deaths of 11 dear friends within a period of a year and a half. In fact, in a span of 35 years (1981 – 2016), I have grieved the loss of an additional 29 friends while supporting countless others as they learned they were HIV-positive.

The nineteenth century brought an advance in health (Williams & Torrens, 2008). The local government was involved and all cities were now included. The local government realized that environmental conditions were causing diseases (Williams & Torrens, 2008).

Throughout the eighteenth-century great strides were being made in the medical field regarding the understanding of disease, biology, and public health. With the contributions of scientists, doctors, and researchers the overall health of the ever-growing population in the eighteenth-century began to improve dramatically. By the early nineteen hundreds, life expectancy had risen to about 55 years. The introduction and understanding of antiseptics, sterilization, and etiology and discoveries of Pasteur, Lister, and Koch invoked a rise against disease which lead to a rise in life expectancy.

Decades earlier, Americans biggest threats were infectious diseases. People did not know how they came about or how to treat them. Throughout the 19th century health was defined as the balance

The towns and hospitals of Victorian England worsened the sanitary situations but helped create sanitary reform efforts. Most towns in Great Britain were beginning to experience problems with overcrowding in the urban areas. “Housing and sanitary facilities could not keep pace with such growth. Customs, technologies, and administrative practices that might have been adequate in older cities or in small villages proved grossly insufficient in the industrial cities” (Victorian Social Medicine p. 125). Many towns and cities were moving to become industrial over agricultural and the industrial movement caused overcrowding. This sudden movement of people into the cities could not be sanitarily kept up with, which lead to many people living in these areas becoming deathly ill. William Farr believed in three big reasons for the high death rate in the towns and why/how many people caught these extraordinary sicknesses. “Poor hygiene, in sanitation, and other environmental defects were the factors Farr blamed most consistently for the high mortality in cities” (Victorian Social Medicine p. 126). Using Farr’s view the author describes how the poor sanitation of the homes and towns were the reason for incredibly high mortality rates. Farr liked to blame the poor hygiene for the high mortality in his earliest studies but would later contradict his own theories with further in depth studies. Farr also being on of the founders of medical statistics liked to look and compare mortality

I chose to add Teen Pregnancies to the "Ten Great Public Health Achievements in the 20th Century." I've chosen this because teenagers ranging from 13-19 years of age need to be caution about having unprotected sex and the types of risk they'll take. Since constantly guarding them and their virtues will not be possible, information about teen pregnancy prevention is often the next best thing.

Until then basic antibiotics and other medications, that we now use frequently to combat diseases, didn’t exist. (‘Science Museum’) This made it easier for individuals to die due to diseases that we now find common and even easy to remedy. Influenza was the most common cause of death until a vaccine was created to fight in 1945.Chicken-pox didn’t have a vaccine until 1974 and since then we’ve made leaps and bounds in improving medical procedures.(‘Medical Advances Timeline’) Twenty years have been added to our average life expectancy since 1950 and this trend is expected to continue, this can be largely contributed to growth in the medical industry .(‘ Living Longer.’) But with this extension of life and easier battles with previously deadly disease comes other risk

The benefits of receiving vaccinations greatly outweigh the risks. Researchers continue to study vaccines in order to discredit myths and misconceptions. Though it is a parents choice as to whether or not they want their child vaccinated, they need to take into account the safety and needs of the community as an outbreak can affect everyone. Although American health and hygiene has improved, not all the world is as knowledgeable about health and

When Medicine was first invented, it probably didn’t have the same intentions as it does today. From the 19th and 20th centuries, different techniques have been developed, making the medical field easier and more beneficial. Changes in anesthesiology, diagnosis of an illness, and antibiotics have helped shape the world as it is today. Between the 19th and 20th century and now, anesthesiology, the diagnosis of illness, and antibiotics have changed dramatically.

No longer do families lose most or all of their children in a span of a few weeks from one disease. Rather, in America and worldwide the disease rates for one such deadly disease, smallpox, has been virtually eliminated (UNICEF). Other common illnesses with a high propensity to kill have been significantly reduced, many by over 50% by modern vaccines. Many vaccines have been created within the last 50 years. Their efficacy and offered protection to a population relies on a scientific theory called herd immunity, which has demonstrated a high level of efficacy for eradicating and significantly reducing rates of lethal illnesses (Vaccines.gov). The protection of a community from infectious disease through herd immunity can be achieved by eliminating the “personal beliefs” exemption, removing fears of parents by shedding light on the false claims of the anti-vaccine movement and the introduction of the transdermal administration route which offers more effective immunity with cheaper and painless

It has been clinically proven that “vaccinations [are] the reason that we don’t see the suffering, disability, and death from whooping cough, measles, polio, and other infectious diseases like we used to” (Meadows, 6). Scientists have demonstrated the positive effects of vaccinations by presenting the statistics related to the number of deaths caused by diseases before and after the vaccines were implemented. Immunization seems to be humanity’s best defense against infectious diseases and without it, it’s much more probably that people can contract and transmit the diseases from person to person. Additionally, “routine childhood immunization has greatly reduced the economic costs of infectious diseases” (National Institute, 1). The costs for yearly immunizations for children are petty compared to the expenses of hospitalization and treatments which are far more probable for kids that do not get immunized from a very young age. In other words, people can save more money by preventing the disease in the first place rather than attempting to cure it after they have been infected. Furthermore, vaccinations also help develop immunity and protects the body. Vaccines allow people to teach their body to fight a certain strain of bacteria and provides artificially acquired immunity, an easier and much less risky method to gain immunity. Like anything else, vaccines are not always 100 percent effective and may not work the same for everybody else, but developing and implementing a vaccination is an arduous and thorough process which leaves very little room for scientists to make mistakes that could harm people. “Experts point out that the risk of being harmed by a vaccine is much lower than the risk that comes with infectious diseases,” and that is completely true because effects

As for diseases in general, “in the late 1800’s and early 1900's, infectious diseases were the most serious threat to health and well being”. The most common causes of death were the respiratory diseases, much like pneumonia, and in this case, tuberculosis. They cause symptoms like loss of breath and frequent coughing fits, as seen in the story. As for setting, “During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, tuberculosis (TB) was the leading cause of death in the United States” (“University of Virginia” 1). With over four hundred citizens dying per day, people were terrified of the ailment. To add on, with such a large number of infected individuals, there is no wonder why at least one member of the Tyrone family had contracted it. This was the problem that the youngest brother Edmund had to face, and what is worse is that “There was no reliable treatment for tuberculosis… most often, doctors simply advised their patients to rest, eat well, and exercise outdoors” (“University of Virginia” 1). Tuberculosis was a major part of everyone’s life, and with no cure for it very few people actually survived. In addition, the first valid cure for the disease wouldn’t come around for another decade, this in turn caused the final aspect of the setting during the Progressive Era. Illnesses plagued the cities of

In the early days hospital were concerned a way of protecting the public, it was not a place of care, more like a morgue to store individual that was deemed unfit to live with the normal human population. They were placed well outside the city limits. Outside of a caretaker that was little to no help for the patient other than being used as an experimental guinea pig. As the years passed and the population begin to grow healthcare began to separate the mental illness and storing them in a separate small building called a strong house. In the 19th century, there was no known protocol for taking care of the sick. The Protestant nursing movement began in Germany and was brought to Pennsylvania in 1850 (Jones and Bartlett). Making provision for

Ragan & Duffy (2012, p.23) have also shown high immunization rates have resulted in a substantial decline in vaccine preventable diseases, particularly vaccination has eliminated smallpox worldwide. In addition, in a study by Bawah, Phillips, Adjuik & smith et al (2010, p.95) found that vaccination has resulted in a large and statistically significant reduction child mortality. The risk of dying for children younger than five who are fully immunized is reduced by more than 70% compared with those who are not immunized or partially immunized. Moreover, research by Dawson (2011, p.1032) also suggests that vaccination is a vital intervention in reducing illness and death rates in children and he estimated approximately 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year by vaccination. In addition to personal immunity Vaccination programs also bring herd immunity which ensures even greater protection for the community from communicable diseases. The level of vaccination required to provide herd immunity varies with virulence and transmissibility as well as vaccine efficacy. While vaccinating

Numerous health emergencies in our nation over the last several hundred years have lead to the formal development of Public and Community Health programs and services. The widespread devastation of the effects of disease within the population of the nation and an inadequate supply of health care delivery services led to the development of schools, agencies, and providers of care to assist with decreasing death and disability of the population and within vulnerable populations such as the poor and underserved. Understanding how infectious disease affects health and the environmental conditions in which disease spreads was at the center of the early public health establishment. Diseases such as small pox, measles, cholera, diphtheria, pertussis, polio, meningitis, influenza and tuberculosis were rampant and caused many deaths. The spread of many of these diseases devastated whole communities and families and led the government to develop programs to track and stop the spread of disease.