CPH

• Health is a right from Article II, section 15, Philippine 1987 Constitution
• The Philippine Government shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them
• Every Filipino has the right to quality health care regardless of their status in society
• The State has its accountability to ensure that every man, woman or child must have access to quality and equitable health care services
• Health (WHO definition)


  A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and NOT merely the absence of a disease or infirmity
• Health is not just a biological or physiological manifestation of wellness
• Social well-being


  A person is free from physical illness and also free from any impediment that will obstruct him from achieving his/her personal goals and aspirations in life
• Poverty - provide livelihood projects
• Health is an enabling factor to achieve one's goal
• Public Health (WHO definition)

  Refers to all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among the population as a whole
• Public health activities aim to provide conditions in which people can be healthy and focus on entire populations, not on individual patients or diseases
• Community


  A group of people with common characteristics or interests living together within a territory or geographical (physical boundary)
• Community health deals with preventive rather than curative aspects of health
• Community health is concerned with population-level rather than individual-level health issues
• Community health takes an interdisciplinary approach of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Health services
• Three main public health functions

  1. The assessment and monitoring of the health of communities and population at risk to identify health problems and priorities

  2. The formulation of public policies designed to solve identified local and national health problems and priorities

  3. To assure that all the populations have access to appropriate and cost effective care, including health promotion and disease prevention services
• History of public health in the Philippines

  • Pre Spanish Era
  • Spanish Era
  • American
  • Japanese
  • Post WW 2 to Pre Martial Law
  • Martial Law
  • The Aquino (Cory) Administration
  • The Ramos Administration
  • The Benigno Aquino Administration
  • Rodrigo Duterte
• Pre-historic era


  • Disease from a supernatural perspective
  • No concept of public health since people were neither organized nor settled in one geographical area (nomads)
  • Pre-historic peoples adopted "health-related practices" for religious purposes (for health or disease is a divine act)
  • A person is sick because he/she has been cursed or punished by a deity or a supernatural being
  • Disease is a supernatural event
  • Only those "gifted" in explaining the inexplicable phenomenon can address the situation (Ex. babaylan)
  • People settle in a communal living (ex. Tribes)
• Shamans


  Medicine men, natural healers of the tribes
• What shamans were skilled at

  1. Used medicinal herbs, usually gathered by most women in the tribe

  2. Used amulets, charms or spells that would supposedly ward off evil spirits that would cause illness

  3. Conducted ceremonies that would appease the gods or supernatural beings and eventually revert the curse that caused the illness

  4. Gave advice on how to maintain an illness-free life
• Geophagy


  Ingestion of clay or earth as a mode of treatment
• Trepanning


  Drilling a hole into a human skull, believing that the hole would release the evil spirit dwelling in the person causing illness
• Trepanning continued until medieval period
• Reasons for the development of public health

  1. Tribes grew, human beings started developing skills more intricate than hunting and farming

  2. Living together became more difficult in accessing food and clean water, disposal of human waste and getting rid of the dead

  3. To address the emerging issues, civilizations started building infrastructures to live comfortably
• Excavation and anthropological studies of ancient Egyptians revealed the establishments of rudimentary baths and toilets in dwelling places; high regards for personal cleanliness but the rationale was more religious than medical
• Ancient Egyptians developed form of writing in keeping records on how certain illnesses should be cured or treated that served as references of their civilization
• Shamans evolved not just "summoners" of spirits and conduits of the gods' messages and medical advice but also "surgical" skills even inventing devices that appeared to be the prototypes of modern day surgical instruments
• Mummification


  A form of taking care of the dead (Egyptians)
• Greek philosophers started to re-think the way Egyptians looked at health and illness and slowly digressed (tuned aside) from the perspective of the supernatural as the cause of illness and disease to a "rational" or "logical" paradigm
• Hippocrates


  Father of Western medicine, contributed largely to the "professionalization" of medicine separating it from religious rituals and the supernatural
• Epidemic


  Epis ("on" or "akin to") Demos ("people")
• Hippocrates proposed that diseases develop due to our environment and NOT because of some form of divine act
• Hippocrates established the Hippocratic School of Medicine, the first to use terms: acute, chronic, endemic, epidemic, paroxysms and exacerbation
• Paroxysm

  A sudden recurrence or attack of a disease; a sudden worsening of symptoms
• Exacerbation


  The process of making a problem, bad situation, or negative feeling worse
• Hippocrates' book "De Aere, Aquis Et Locis" or "Of Air, Water and Land" may be considered the first rational guide to the establishment of science-based public health
• Greeks had concepts of 4 humors: phlegm, blood, yellow bile, black bile
• Romans


  • Imperialists; warriors
  • Spent more wealth and efforts in developing infrastructures that would develop their conquered states
  • Built sewers and aqueducts
  • Roman doctors learned much about health & medicine through wounded warriors or gladiators
  • Preferred studying on living persons rather than dissecting corpses thus resulted to dissecting animals
• Battlefield and Arenas


  Roman doctors' learning halls
• Roman Aqueducts


  • Le Pont du Gard, in southern France