Career Opportunity: Public Health relates to the protection of the population from diseases and illness and the overall improvement of health and living conditions that affect the health of individuals and the community. Some tools that are invariably used for this purpose are education, promotion of healthy lifestyle habits, and research on disease and its prevention.
The broad spectrum of public health includes environmental health, behavioral science, epidemiology, biostatistics, maternal and child healthcare, nutrition, public health practice, etc. Such are studied for effective prevention of threats to life.
It is to be noted down that this field is only about the prevention of diseases and not their cure, thus public health officers do not treat patients. They take steps to prevent the breakout of the illness. And they work at the community, country, and global level. The diseases that they deal with are of a community nature, like example AIDS, polio, malaria, and other epidemics.
Public health professionals study the effects of the environment, lifestyle, living conditions, genetics, on health. Such an individual can work with a hospital or healthcare institution, public health officials, international healthcare organizations like WHO, or with NGOs. Research and continued study form an integral part of my career as a public health manager. Also, there is a lot of travel involved, within the city and community, as well as to far-off places, just to ensure proper health and preventive measures.
If you aim to be a public health officer, you should ideally take up since at plus two levels. Thereafter, you can go for a bachelor’s degree in science, specifically in biology. With a firm base created, you can then specialize in fields such as public health management, health economics, etc.
Some good institutes to enroll in India are the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Delhi; Indian Institute of Public Health, Gurgaon; Christian Medical College, Vellore; Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram; All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata; Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.
You should be socially responsible and committed. Being able to handle work, and the ability to work in a team helps you in your work. Also, you should be able to communicate effectively as you will have to get across to people belonging to different sections of the society, doctors, researchers, etc.
Healthcare is extremely essential. The concept has recently been born in India and thus needs time to take its form. This budding field f work requires dedicated professionals and institutes to nurture it.
