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Synthesis Essay On Public Health

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Public health is who manage the activities of the whole society to make the public efficiently respond to and defeat the epidemic in good order. They provide the public with correct instructions and education about the epidemic, so the public who is unprepared for the disease can follow proper instructions to succeed in protecting themselves and others. However, in 1918, when government guided the public to defeat Spanish Flu, they met a lot of difficulty in controlling the urban masses, other than in taking effective preventive measures. Individuals were reluctant to follow some public health policies because their life was intervened and they lost their income. Although it is viewed as a kind of social justice to restrict individuals’ behaviors …show more content…

Voluntary actions are important because it saves a lot of manpower when the public can have a basic preparation for the disease and prevention from the epidemic by themselves. Moreover, having self-protecting ability and self-efficacy is crucial when facing to a communicative disease. Therefore, government can encourage individuals and commercial facilities to follow their instructions and have a basic understanding of a basic health care, so the public can take measures immediately when an epidemic break out. Also, how to make individuals to follow these instructions is a big problem for public health. In 1819 Spanish influenza, “when Copeland met with representatives from New York City street car companies, theaters, and movie houses, he found them more than eager to help publicize influenza control measures as a way to head off potentially profit-killing closures” (Tomes 55). The public health department realized how to encourage prevention measures was to make use of individuals’ emotional reactions that they opposed those instructions because they feared to lose their income. Instead, government inspired the public to obey another instruction that brought less cost. In order to not obey a more rigorous order, individuals have a great enthusiasm to follow an order that brings less loss. As a result, government can take advantage of this psychology of the public to make policy. Actually, in an epidemic, that only the public health makes every effort to ask individuals follow their instruction is not enough. What’s important is to arouse individuals’ voluntary awareness of healthy preventive methods and their self-control of personal health habits. In 1918 Spanish Flu, public health made such requirement that “the city’s physicians to begin a voluntary program reporting suspected cases and

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