Public health officer

“ The duty of the physician in the community, according to Ruskin, is to keep it in health, and it is with this object that public health officers are appointed in centres of civilisation. Their qualifications for the position must be of the highest, or their opinions would not receive that respect and attention necessary to ensure the adoption of precautionary measures to avoid sickness. ”

“ In General.—For the purposes of receiving notifications and responses and making requests under this part on behalf of emergency response employees, the public health officer of each State shall designate 1 official or officer of each employer of emergency response employees in the State. `` (b) Preference in Making Designations.—In making the designations required in subsection (a) , a public health officer shall give preference to individuals who are trained in the provision of health care or in the control of infectious diseases. ”

“ There is much experience to establish the conclusion that very special qualifications are requisite for the performance of the duties of an officer of the public health. The only safe proof of the possession of such qualifications is the fact of a person having investigated successfully some scientific question on the prevention of disease to a practical end, by which the main qualification, the 190habit of practical investigation, and zeal and ability for the service of prevention may be placed beyond doubt. ”

“ There is in the city one principal sanitary officer, a duly qualified medical man elected by the Municipal Council, whose sole duty it is to watch over the sanitary welfare of the place. Under him, as sanitary officers, are all the medical men who form the poor law medical staff. ”

“ We must not only teach the individual how to guard his life against preventable disease and accident, we must educate our communities to the need of an effective public health service to enforce sanitary regulations and otherwise guard the health and lives of their members. ”

“ For its sins of omission, as for its sins of commission, the medical profession shares responsibility with laymen. For years leading educators, business men, hospital directors, public officials, have known that communicable diseases could be stamped out. ”

“ The new Department of Public Health should be given administrative supervision over public sanitation, hospitals, asylums, clinics, dispensaries, and other institutions that minister to the health of the people. ”

“ ASSISTANT SURGEON, UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
THE wide-spread ignorance of the various means employed by the federal government to promote the well-being of its citizens is nowhere better exemplified than in the common ignorance of the functions and important work of the Public Health Service. This ignorance is the more lamentable inasmuch as the Public Health Service is the sole national agency operating to combat and prevent epidemic diseases among human beings, and to improve public sanitation and hygiene, in the United States. ”

“ The passing of sanitary laws, and the granting to a certain department the power to enforce these laws, will not ensure good public health unless the public at large supports those laws intelligently, and it can only do this through State and municipal sanitary organizations. ”

“ What is public health work? It is best defined by stating its object, which is to secure the maximum attainable health of every member of the community, so far as this can be secured by the authorities, local, state, or federal, concerned in any part of government, acting in coöperation with all voluntary agencies whose [Pg 44] work conduces to the same end. The connotation of public health becomes wider year by year. It embraces physiological as well as pathological life; being as much concerned with improving the standard of health of each person as with the prevention and cure of disease. ”

“ The public health administration departments of the local people's governments at or above the country level shall, within their own administrative areas, be responsible for supervision over prevention and control of occupational diseases. ”

“ A popular but unstable remedy is to enable local authorities, when they are too small to require the undivided time of such men as the Medical Officers of our great municipalities, to combine for public health purposes so that each may share the services of a highly paid official of the best class; but the right remedy is a larger area as the sanitary unit. ”

“ In England, more perhaps than in America, the control of public health work has been shared by intelligent laymen on local and central authorities, and the fact that medical officers of health have found it necessary to convince these lay representatives of the general public of the need for the reforms recommended, has led to steady progress, seldom interrupted by relapses. ”

“ Article 16
⁠The state adopts measures to ensure citizens' access to safe and effective basic public health services, controls health risk factors, and improves the level of disease prevention and control.
⁠National basic public health service programs shall be determined by the health department under the State Council in conjunction with the department of finance and the department of traditional Chinese medicine under the State Council. ”

“ The CDC's innovative programs also address our national challenges of chronic disease, workplace and environmental hazards, injuries, birth defects, disabilities, and new infectious threats. In addition, the agency gathers and analyzes scientific data to better monitor public health, provide a solid foundation for decision-making, and detect risk factors. ”

“ PROPOSED NATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLIC HEALTH, CONTROLLED BY ONE SCHOOL OF DOCTORS, CONDEMNED A typical instance of the dangerous tendency of the medical profession to extend its power over the people is shown in the recent scheme of the proposed National Department of Public Health, to be composed chiefly of doctors of one sect, with a head doctor having a seat in the President’s Cabinet. ”

“ Prevention is the watchword which is being signalled along the line of the medical profession, at the present time, concerning the management of disease. The importance of State Boards of Health in many of the larger States has become so generally recognized, that they are yearly appointed, and make regular reports, with more or less full accounts as to the results of observations in reference to the public health and the prevention of disease, which prove to be of the highest value. ”

“ None but medical men can prosecute such investigations with success, or suggest the proper remedy. If such a corps of sanitary inspectors were daily patrolling their districts, visiting from house to house, searching out sanitary evils, advising and aiding the people in the adoption of preventive measures, no epidemics of smallpox, typhus, scarlet fever, or cholera would ever gain more than a transient foothold. The sanitary inspector would truly become an officer of health and would be everywhere welcome. ”

“ The principles now affirmed in our statute-book are such as, if carried into full effect, would soon reduce to quite an insignificant amount our present very large proportions of preventable disease.... Large powers have been given to local authorities, and obligation expressly imposed on them, as regards their respective districts, to suppress all kinds of nuisance, and to provide all such works and establishments as the public health primarily requires; while auxiliary powers have been given for more or less optional exercise in matters deemed of less than primary importance to health.... ”

“ A properly organized system of public health services including medical and dental care, which would stress the prevention rather than the cure of illness should be extended to all our people in both rural and urban areas. This is an enterprise in which Dominion, Provincial and Municipal authorities, as well as the medical and dental professions can cooperate. ”

“ Walter H. Page of New York. The different State organizations will report to him a member for that committee from each particular State. It will be well to report to Mr. Page either tonight or early in the morning.
We all need to be put under authority. We find people are not taking good care of their health, of themselves or of the community. We will now hear from Dr. L. E. Cofer of Washington, D. C., Assistant Surgeon-General of the United States Public Health Service, who will address the Congress on the subject of “Authority In Health Control.” ”

“ That the work done on behalf of the community, plus the work accomplished by private medical practitioners, is not equal to national needs is obvious to any one considering the vast amount of avoidable disease in our midst. Why is this and what is the remedy? A partial answer is given by English experience. The medical provision made in a large proportion of cases is belated and inadequate; and in perhaps a still larger proportion of cases medical advice is not obtained, or being obtained, is not followed. This applies even more to hygienic than to clinical medical advice. ”

“ We will improve the disease prevention and control network, increase collaboration between disease control agencies and hospitals, make greater efforts to train public health personnel, and improve our capabilities for monitoring major epidemics and conducting early warning, epidemiological investigation and tracing, and emergency response. ”

“ One of the provisions of the Bill was, as I have before stated, that every district Poor Law medical officer should be the health officer of his district, and that his reports of insanitary conditions should be sent to the Board of Guardians, many members of which Board would be found to be the principal offenders against sanitary requirements. ”

“ The Secretary of HHS shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, as soon as practicable:
provide technical support to State, local, Tribal, and territorial public health agencies with respect to testing and contact-tracing efforts; andassist such authorities in the training of public health workers. This may include technical assistance to non-Federal public health workforces in connection with testing, contact tracing, and mass vaccinations, as well as other urgent public health workforce needs, such as combating opioid use. ”

“ So the duties and responsibilities of a Health Department are not only changed, but they are very greatly increased and are constantly increasing. And on broad lines to cause the citizen to do the things he can and ought to do, and then to do for him the things that he cannot do, but which should be done, is the duty of the State, and that, being interpreted, means the real prevention of disease. ”

“ We are sorry, indeed, to observe, that the power of the magistrate is seldom exerted in this country for the preservation of health. The importance of a proper medical police is either not understood, or little regarded. Many things highly injurious to the public health are daily practiced with impunity, while others, absolutely necessary for its preservation, are entirely neglected. ”

“ Not later than March 23, 2011, the Chair, in consultation with the Council, shall develop and make public a national prevention, health promotion, and public health strategy (national strategy) , and shall review and revise it periodically. The national strategy shall: (a) ⁠ set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of the United States through federally supported prevention, health promotion, and public health programs, consistent with ongoing goal setting efforts conducted by specific agencies ”

“ Whereas health care policies should emphasize public health and encourage the use of quality services and evidence-based treatment that is appropriate and safe and that discourages unnecessary treatment ”

“ While this work was proceeding the organizations devoting their energies to control of infectious disease, inspection, and administration had been far from idle. The State Board of Health had three sanitary engineers and two physicians, trained in public health work, in the city before the waters receded. The city Board of Health was one of the first in the field, and the medical corps of the Ohio National Guard promptly took up the work. ”

“ Do not think the health officers unreasonable when they tell you that you must stay at home and that no one can come in to see you. This is done to protect other people and to keep them from getting the same disease that you have. If you ever have diphtheria, or any other communicable disease, you must remember that if any of your playmates come in to see you, they may get the same disease. ”

“ Section 1102 Definitions As used in this part:
(1) "Emergency health services" means medical and dental care for the civilian population in all of their specialties and adjunct therapeutic fields, and the planning, provision, and operation of first aid stations, hospitals, and clinics; preventive health services, including detection, identification and control of communicable diseases, their vectors, and other public health hazards, inspection and control of purity and safety of food, drugs, and biologicals; vital statistics services ”

“ The health department of a modern city is charged with a double duty: it has to care for cases of disease, and it has to suggest and enforce laws to keep the city sanitary. The former task—the treatment of sickness—is much more widely recognized as the proper function of the medical profession ”

“ The best physicians have welcomed her assistance. No stronger testimony to the value of her services is needed than the present demand for public health workers in connection with industrial establishments, department stores, religious and civic institutions and health departments of city, town and county. ”