What is Public Health?

"College is great. Everything I learned in college I have used in life," my dad said to me as he helped me move my mini-fridge up a flight of stairs and into my dorm room. "Awesome," I replied.

A week later I started classes. I was eager to learn and excited for my first college lesson. My brain was running on high-voltage as I walked into my first class with my textbook in hand. I took a seat in the front of class and smiled at the professor. She smiled back -- I knew this was going to be a good class.

We went around the room introducing ourselves. "Hi, I'm Bradley, a first-year student from South Florida. I'm interested in health psychology, sociology, and political science." After everyone introduced themselves the professor gave a short introduction. She received a Ph.D in Health Psychology and had been teaching for four years. She then described the topics we would be covering over the course of the semester -- health psychology, political psychology, and social psychology. "This is going to be awesome," I thought.

The professor then turned to me and asked, "Bradley, how would you define health?"

I froze. There was an awkward silence as I looked down and away from the professor while trying to think of an answer. A few more seconds went by. This wasn't as awesome as I thought it would be. I was hoping she would help me answer the question after a few more seconds went by. But nothing. I was nervous. I was wishing the characters from Schoolhouse Rock would jump out from behind me and give a fifty-second song-and-dance answer to my question. Still nothing.

I then responded, "I'm not sure."

"Good," she said. "A perfect starting point." She then went on to explain how many concepts don't have textbook definitions, especially health psychology. Public health is a broad concept encompassing many diverse topics. One sentence does not fully describe or clearly explain public health. Sure, public health can be described in one sentence. "Public health is the study and practice of managing threats to the health of a community." But a sentence does not illustrate the many different aspects and approaches to public health.

I quickly learned my first lesson in college: There are some things textbooks cannot teach you.

My dad would be happy with me. My first lesson in college was an important one that I used in many aspects of my life. It was a great lesson when I decided to study public health. I went beyond the textbook and started to explore public health in my community. By talking to people, going to forums, and learning from different disciplines.

The focus of this blog is to explore public health in Sarasota. But, first, we need to discover what public health means. The University of South Florida College of Public Health explains how health professionals have a difficult time defining public health. One reason is that public health is a wide area of study. "The base of knowledge for public health comes from a variety of disciplines, ranging from social sciences to biological sciences and business..."

This blog will go beyond the textbook to spotlight public health in Sarasota. It will explore Sarasota health issues from all different angles through stories and multimedia. Hopefully we all can learn how to answer "What is public health?" without freezing.