Networks improve the public health

Marianne Tollin, Manager of the Public Health Department

All the 13 communities and the county council have just finished a program for the Public health.

• Public health is that work which will preserve and improve the health and quality of life for the people. The work shall be aimed at preventing diseases and injuries and diminish inequality in health between different groups in society. At its outmost point: the number of years with good quality of life shall increase!

• It includes all sorts of actions or events for the people: the way we are living our lives, behaviour, environmental conditions, housing accommodations and areas, traffic security, medical attendance and health care, non-alcoholic and anti-drug policies etc.
• We have a vision, a zero-vision. We will in all ways work against a society where no people will fall ill, be damaged, hurt or injured in any case that could have been prevented. The important thing with the vision is the direction.

• The more traditional way is to work with programs for different risk factors, such as tobacco, alcohol, other drugs or risks for different environmental exposures. Unemployment can also be seen as a risk factor. The target is to eliminate or at least reduce the use or the exposure of the risk factor in question. Another perspective is to promote health and to protect from bad health. It is a more positive approach. You don’t ask why people fall ill or why certain accidents happen. Instead the question is why certain people, despite bad conditions, do not fall ill or get hurt. What was it in their lives that protected them, is the question.
• We talk about the importance of social networks, the importance of having close relations to other people. It shows that it is important to be able to affect your own life, your working conditions and so on. But is it also a matter of the meaningfulness of life, to have a structure in your daily life and to be able to see that your life is a part of a total, completeness.
  Working with public health is of course also a matter of preventing illness, sickness and diseases. Mother, baby- and vaccination programs, screening for different diseases, smoke preventing, suicide preventing programs and so on.
• Another perspective is to work with different groups of people, for example children, youth, elderly people, women, low educated people, low income groups and so on. You can see a pattern for different diseases, behaviours e.g. smoking more or less in different groups.
  The last perspective is the arena-perspective. In this perspective you combine all the another perspectives mentioned before!
  Some examples: The school arena, the hospital arena, the housing arena.

Public health engages lots and lots of people. It is not a work only for the county council or for the different parts of the community service. It is a matter for everyone, wherever we gather: in unions, in organisations, where we live, where we work, in our families.
It s a global network consisting of millions of local networks!