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Review: Public Health and Civil Society: Challenges for the Future

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Public health is the art and science of promoting health, preventing disease and injury, and prolonging life through the organized efforts of society. We have made great strides in healthcare to achieve these goals through a set of core values:

• The priority of prevention: prevention of illness and injury is better for individuals, businesses and society than trying to treat and treat illness or injury after it occurs;

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• Health for all: Regardless of age, gender, income, religion or ethnicity, we all deserve to be as healthy as possible;

• Determinants of health: Although personal choices and genetics change, evidence suggests that our physical and social environments are actually more important determinants;

• Evidence-based: We need to collect and use the best possible evidence when we work to promote health for all.

These values ​​are needed to support community organizing efforts, especially in Alberta, for years and decades to come. There are key elements that are fundamental to the success of health care in Alberta and beyond:

• Trust: COVID and other health threats have highlighted the importance of trust. By relying on public health, society has reduced smoking, deaths from cancer and infectious diseases, and deaths from workplace and traffic accidents. This trust is based on a culture of transparency, integrity and accountability for what we do as healthcare professionals.

• Disarming Anti-Science: When lives are at stake, we cannot make decisions or act based on myths, rumours, anecdotes, lies, or who shouts the loudest or gets the most clicks. Public health leaders, our governments, and community organizations must continue to demonstrate their commitment to evidence-based public health program development, implementation, and evaluation. We cannot allow public health to be silenced by those who deny what the best science reveals.

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• A strong system: We need adequate investment in a public health system with adequate manpower, infrastructure and resources. Failure to invest the necessary time and money creates a huge long-term risk.

• Strong Capacity: A strong public health system relies on the ability to generate additional capacity (people, resources, funding) to respond to major emergencies and epidemics. Undoubtedly, big bad events are ahead. Strong and resilient communities are better able to respond to extreme weather, fire and flood emergencies, prolonged droughts, climate refugees, changing patterns of infectious diseases, and the economic shocks that accompany these consequences of climate change.

Ultimately, public health is about everything we do for one another—investing in clean air and water, providing safe and healthy food, and publicly available and free immunization programs. Ensuring that the places where we live, work and play are healthy spaces has resulted in the vital and vibrant communities we have today. We must make the same investment in our future so that our children can enjoy the same benefits.

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Finally, a warning for the future. One of the greatest strengths of public health is that it works with all people, and diversity ensures that our work is focused on achieving health for all. So one of the greatest threats to success is anything that divides us, that is, anything that is dishonest or untrue, or that makes other people feel unworthy of the organized efforts of society. These destructive lies are spread and reinforced by people, organizations and governments either in ignorance or as deliberate attempts to undermine our pluralistic, democratic and open society.

Make no mistake about it—in public health, we define these entities and behaviors as a hazard, a “source or condition capable of causing harm.” One of the most important strategies for our continued health is to find ways to reduce and eliminate these risks and make ourselves and our communities more resilient to them.

All our lives depend on other people. The enduring lesson of the COVID pandemic is how much we must depend on each other.

Our future health depends on how well we learn that lesson.

Dr. James Talbot and Dr. Lynn McIntyre are writing in collaboration with the Alberta Public Health Association, which promotes public health through advocacy, partnerships and education.

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