Dr. Jonathan Spages is explaining the core functions of public Health Nutrition. Nutrition is very important for the good health of a person.

1. Core Functions of Public Health
Nutrition
Dr Jonathan Spages

2. What is Health?

3. Health
A state of complete physical, mental, and
social well-being, not merely the
absence of disease.

4. What is Public Health?

5. Mission of Public Health
“…to fulfill society’s interest in assuring
conditions in which people can be
healthy.”
IOM. Future of Public Health.

6. Population Health
Improving Everyone’s Quality of Life: Group Health
Foundation, 2001

7. Population Health
• Considers a broad set of options for
improving and sustaining health
• Highlights role of social and economic
forces in combination with biological
and environmental factors
• Results in benefits to all

8. Public Health Practice Compared to
Clinical Nutrition Practice
Public Health
Practice
Clinical Nutrition
Practice
Focus Prevention Disease treatment
Target Populations Individuals
Setting States &
Communities
Clinics &
Hospitals
Strategies Multiple,
Reinforcing
Counseling and
education

9. Core Functions of Public Health

11. Assessment
• Assess the problems and needs of the
population
• Monitor the health of populations
• Assess and monitor the determinants of
population health

12. Policy Development
• Develop policies, programs and
activities that address health outcomes
and the determinants of those outcomes

13. Assurance
• Assure the implementation of effective
strategies by providing or monitoring
policies, activities, and services.

14. What About Nutrition?

15. Mission of Public Health Nutrition
• To assure conditions in which people
have access to adequate and
appropriate food.
• To assure conditions in which people
can achieve optimal nutritional health.

16. Leading Causes of Death, 1900
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center
for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System and
unpublished data. 1997.

17. Leading Causes of Death, 1997
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for
Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System and
unpublished data. 1997.

19. 10 Essential Public Health Services: Public
Health Functions Steering Committee - State
and Local
• Monitor Health Status to identify community health
problems
• Diagnose and investigate health problems
• Inform, educate, and empower people about health
issues
• Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve
health problems
• Develop policies and plans that support individual
and community health efforts
• Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and
ensure safety

20. • Link people to needed personal health services and
assure the provision of health care when otherwise
unavailable
• Assure a competent public health and personal heath
care workforce
• Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of
personal and population-based public health services
• Research for new insights and innovative solutions to
health problems

21. Brief History of Public Health
Nutrition

22. Achievements in Public Health, 1900-
1999: Safer and Healthier Foods (MMWR )
• “During the early 20th century, contaminated food,
milk, and water caused many foodborne infections,
including typhoid fever, tuberculosis, botulism, and
scarlet fever.”
• “Once the sources and characteristics of foodborne
diseases were identified--long before vaccines or
antibiotics--they could be controlled by handwashing,
sanitation, refrigeration, pasteurization, and pesticide
application. Healthier animal care, feeding, and
processing also improved food supply safety.”

24. • “The discovery of essential nutrients and
their roles in disease prevention has
been instrumental in almost eliminating
nutritional deficiency diseases such as
goiter, rickets, and pellagra in the United
States.”

26. • “During 1922-1927, with the
implementation of a statewide prevention
program, the goiter rate in Michigan fell
from 38.6% to 9.0 %.”
• “In 1921, rickets was considered the
most common nutritional disease of
children, affecting approximately 75% of
infants in New York City.”

27. 1917 USDA issues dietary recommendations (5 food
groups)
1924 Iodine added to salt
1920s Maternal and Infancy act – state health
departments employ nutritionists
1930s Federal gov’t. establishes food relief, nutrition
education, school feeding, food consumption
survey.
1940s 25% of draftees had present/past malnutrition;
National Nutrition Conference for Defense: first
RDA, War Order Number One: enrich wheat
flour with vitamins and iron
1949 Framingham

28. 1968 Hunger USA
1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition,
and Health
70s “McGovern committee”, Preschool survey, 10
State Nutrition Survey, Food Stamp legislation,
Child Nutrition Act – WIC, EFNEP,NET,
nutrition labeling
1979 Surgeon General’s Report: Healthy People
1980 First Dietary Guidelines for Americans
1988 Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and
Health
1990 National Nutrition Monitoring and Related
Research Act
1997 First DRIs

29. Last Decade: Strong Emphasis on
Policy & Environmental Change

30. Healthy People 2020
• Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year
national objectives for improving the health of all
Americans.
• Overarching Goals
1. Attain high-quality, longer lives free of preventable
disease, disability, injury, and premature death.
2. Achieve health equity, eliminate disparities, and
improve the health of all groups.
3. Create social and physical environments that promote
good health for all.
4. Promote quality of life, healthy development, and
healthy behaviors across all life stages.