Public Health Great Achievements
In the contemporary world, strides in have been the order of the day in various fields of health. One area of health that epitomizes this assertion is the public health, which in the recent years has had the greatest success in several aspects of this discipline. The success in these priority areas is commonly known as the ten public health great achievement. The areas of high achievements include but not limited to vaccination, recognition of tobacco as a health hazard, control of infectious diseases, safer working conditions and motor vehicle safety. Of the ten areas, immunization stands out of them all given the addition it has had in the public health and is worth analysis. In essence, the analysis will aim at establishing the importance of vaccination has had on the society and the reasons to back it up as one of the public health great achievements.
Primarily, vaccination is vital to the society in many ways that are noteworthy. Firstly, with immunization the community benefits from the low cost of healthcare given that prevention is inexpensive as compared to therapeutic services. Furthermore, the vaccines reduce the prevalence of antibiotic resistance by protecting the society members from contracting the infectious diseases in the first place. For instance, the typhoid vaccine is a notable example on this account that can particularly reduce the primary infection of typhoid, which will require antibiotic use. Lastly, another benefit to the society is its ability to guarantee safe travel and mobility. That is the case given individuals in areas with endemic diseases such as polio can freely move to another area upon their immunization (Bärnighausen, Bloom, Cafiero-Fonseca, & O’Brien, 2014). Clearly, with such benefits, it is undeniable that vaccination is important to the society.
Finally, vaccination deserves to be a great achievement of public health due to several reasons. One factor that marks this assertion is its ability to eradicate smallpox that was a menace for a long time. Also, vaccination has managed to reduce measles significantly, which also has had a huge implication through the deaths it has caused in the years before vaccines development (Greenwood, 2014). Evidently, with such instances, it is beyond doubt that vaccination deserves its place as a great achievement of public health.
In conclusion, indeed immunization has been a revelation in the field of medicine and its advantages are undeniable. Despite its merits, vaccination receives resistances from some section of the population due to safety concerns. Thus, health care professionals need to demystify such claims if they are to achieve full immunization coverage that will inevitably increase the fortunes of vaccination further. Failure, to do so, however, will reduce the chances of realizing this outcome.
References
Bärnighausen, T., Bloom, D. E., Cafiero-Fonseca, E. T., & O’Brien, J. C. (2014).Valuing vaccination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(34), 12313-12319.
Greenwood, B. (2014). The contribution of vaccination to global health: past, present and future. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 369(1645), 20130433.
