Introduction to health and public health: key concepts
- Page updated onJune 29, 2026
Table of contents:
What is health?
Health is well-being and a right, with all that this entails
Health is physical, mental and social wellbeing. This wonderful definition will soon be 80 years old. It was reflected thus in the Constitution of the World Health Organization of 1946, accompanied closely by the equally necessary phrase "The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition" (WHO, 1946).
It is possible that the WHO's definition of health, seen so long afterwards, falls short in many respects, as many authors point out (Huber et al., 2011). However, it also remains enormously inspiring (Schramme, 2023). This definition does not confine health to the biomedical, and moreover elevates it to the aspirational. This does, however, entail some additional problems: how do we measure something so utopian and so dependent on each person's subjective sense of feeling well? How do we translate something so individual to the collective level?
Health as a public good
To overcome the limitations of this definition, others add that this wellbeing provides the capacity to function or perform (Huber et al., 2011). This new variable can lead to a (mis)understanding of health as a mere market good or an instrument for production. However, it also opens the door to placing health at the service of whatever each person wishes to do with their life. Moreover, it encourages us to think of health as a public and global good (Chen et al., 1999). Suddenly, one person's health can contribute to the health of others in their environment and community through care, interpersonal relationships and participation in collective efforts.
By understanding health from a biopsychosocial perspective, more questions arise: what, then, determines the state of health? What are these determinants of health?
What is public health?
Public health as a collective effort
The concept of public health was born in the mid-nineteenth century. It was during these years that a revolutionary report highlighted that disease in the population of Great Britain was, to a large extent, caused by filth, lack of sanitation and the precarious living conditions of the working class, and not by laziness or moral defects (Chadwick, 1842). These are also the years in which John Snow identified the route of transmission of cholera and the way to halt its epidemic in London (Snow, 1855). Moreover, in parallel with these advances, in 1851 the first International Sanitary Conference was organised, a historic milestone in international cooperation in public health (Howard-Jones, 1975).
Today we can understand public health as an organised effort to prevent disease and to protect and promote the health of the population (Winslow, 1920). This definition is a simplification for educational purposes of other more complete and advanced ones. However, it helps us to focus on some key characteristics of public health as an art or science: the coordination between actors in a health system, the emphasis on prevention, the population-level perspective with a goal of social justice and equity, and a series of essential functions.
Essential public health functions
There are many models of essential public health functions or services that explain what it deals with, such as those of the WHO (WHO, 2024a), PAHO (PAHO, 2019) or the US CDC (CDC, 2020).
They all have in common some aspects such as the use of data for decision making. This includes population health surveillance, equity monitoring, or the evaluation of the social determinants of health. It also involves research and analysis of the capacity and performance of health systems and their services. These are all functions that allow the use of the knowledge of the available scientific evidence to be able to manage health risks and public health emergencies.
Another group of public health functions is related to ensuring access to quality preventive and curative health services. This may require guiding the allocation of resources, developing the potential of health personnel, ensuring the availability of medical products and technologies, and guaranteeing equity through proper financing.
All this is highly related to the development and implementation of policies, plans and laws related to health care, the social determinants of health, the right to health and equity, and the promotion and protection of health, ensuring social participation, transparency and accountability.
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Public health governance
The practice of public health — and therefore its governance — must be carried out under the leadership of the authorities (duty-bearers) (WHO, 2024b). These must have the support of other organisations and institutions (responsibility-holders) and the participation of the population (rights-holders). Although when we refer to the population it is intuitive to think of groups of inhabitants of administrative areas such as municipalities, districts, regions or countries, it is also possible to think of communities, collectives or territories, for example.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020). 10 essential public health services. https://www.cdc.gov/public-health-gateway/php/about/index.html
- Chadwick, E. (1842). Report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain. Poor Law Commission. https://s3.amazonaws.com/aspphwebassets/delta-omega/archives/ChadwickClassic.pdf
- Chen, L. C., Evans, T. G., & Cash, R. A. (1999). Health as a global public good. In I. Kaul, I. Grunberg, & M. A. Stern (Eds.), Global public goods: International cooperation in the 21st century (pp. 284–304). Oxford University Press. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eugenio-Bobenrieth/publication/46440722_The_Political_Economy_of_International_Environmental_Cooperation/links/55ddb07308ae79830bb531ed/The-Political-Economy-of-International-Environmental-Cooperation.pdf#page=322
- Howard-Jones, N. (1975). The scientific background of the International Sanitary Conferences, 1851–1938. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/290ffb4d-dba5-4a18-82b3-a5c907465d00/content
- Huber, M., Knottnerus, J. A., Green, L., van der Horst, H., Jadad, A. R., Kromhout, D., Leonard, B., Lorig, K., Loureiro, M. I., van der Meer, J. W., Schnabel, P., Smith, R., van Weel, C., & Smid, H. (2011). How should we define health? BMJ, 343, d4163. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d4163
- Pan American Health Organization. (2019). The essential public health functions in the Americas: A renewal for the 21st century. Conceptual framework and description. https://iris.paho.org/handle/10665.2/53124
- Schramme, T. (2023). Health as complete well-being: The WHO definition and beyond. Public Health Ethics, 16(3), 210–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phad017
- Snow, J. (1855). On the mode of communication of cholera (2nd ed., enlarged). John Churchill. https://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/documentUploads/15-78-52/15-78-52-22-1855-MCC2.pdf
- Winslow, C.-E. A. (1920). The untilled fields of public health. Science, 51(1306), 23–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1645011
- World Health Organization. (1946). Constitution of the World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution
- World Health Organization. (2024a). Application of the essential public health functions: An integrated and comprehensive approach to public health. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240088306
- World Health Organization. (2024b). National workforce capacity for essential public health functions: Operational handbook for country-led contextualization and implementation. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240091412
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How to cite this page
Abarca, B. (June 29, 2026). Introduction to health and public health: key concepts. Salud Everywhere. https://saludeverywhere.com/en/health-in-humanitarian-crises/health-and-public-health/