The first full week of April each year has been designated as National Public Health Week. This year’s theme is “Public Health: Start Here.” The intent is to bring together communities across the United States to recognize the contributions of public health and highlight issues that are important to improving the health of our nation.
The American Public Health Association, with its nearly 50,000 members and more than 140 years of experience, has served as the organizer of National Public Health Week for almost 20 years.
The practice of public health has a long history that started with the control and prevention of communicable diseases, including those spread from person to person directly and those spread through the contamination of our food and water. While public health certainly continues those ongoing efforts through disease investigation, immunizations, and sanitary inspections, it has increasingly focused on chronic disease conditions, emergency preparedness, and systems change through policies that create physical and social environments that have major impacts on populations.
Marion Health Commissioner, Tom Quade, has a wide lens when he describes public health.
“Marion’s Public Health system is so much more than just the health department. Our community is served by and depends on a very broad network of agencies and people doing work critical to protecting and promoting the health of our population,” stated Quade. “When we travel further upstream to the social issues that create environments that either protect or challenge health and wellbeing, we can quickly see that both our challenges and our partners have expanded exponentially.”
He describes Marion Public Health’s more traditional medical and clinical partners such as the Center Street Clinic, Marion General, and the OhioHealth Marion Area Physicians, as well as the various other entities, like the ADAMH Board, that address mental and behavioral health. And, he always points out the tremendous value added to the Marion community by the wellness work of the Marion Family YMCA.
But he is quick to jump to a much broader field that includes educators committed to assuring a prepared workforce and employers willing to break a cycle of incarceration by employing people who have been previously incarcerated or who are in recovery from addiction. He talks about funders like United Way, the Marion Community Foundation, and others who provide critical support to agencies who are struggling to do good work with short funds.
Public health doesn’t stop there, says Quade. Marion’s faith-based community provides a spiritual foundation that inspires health and wellness and provides support to those suffering physically and emotionally. Marion’s elected officials and community business people who create and implement community and workplace policies that are aligned with good health and wellness also have a tremendous impact on health.
One of Quade’s many one-liners refers to individuals taking responsibility for making healthy decisions.
“Healthy decisions are made from menus that include healthy options and it is the job of all of us in this most broadly conceived public health system to assure everyone has access to that menu, regardless of their income, their race, their gender, their age, their ability, their beliefs, or their neighborhood.”
“Marion is a community that is quick to recognize its own challenges. Marion is also a community of tremendous resources,” said Quade. “The public’s health does indeed start here, with all of us.”
You can learn more about the services offered at Marion Public Health by visiting www.marionpublichealth.org.
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