Sinopsis
Preventive and Social Medicine is comparatively a newcomer among the academic disciplines of medicine. Previously it was taught to medical students as hygiene and public health. This name was later changed to preventive and social medicine when it was realized that the subject encompassed much more than merely the principles of hygiene and sanitation and public health engineering. The name preventive and social medicine emphasizes the role of: (a) disease prevention in general through immunization, adequate nutrition, etc. in addition to the routine hygiene measures, and (b) social factors in health and disease.
The name preventive and social medicine has gained wide acceptance in the past twenty-five years or so because of its broader and more comprehensive outlook on medicine, integrating both prevention and cure. Today, it implies a system of total health care delivery to individuals, families and communities at the clinic, in the hospital and in the community itself.
During last 150 years, there have been two important “revolutions”. The industrial revolution in 1830 was associated with the discovery of steam power and led to rapid industrializations, resulting in concentration of
wealth in the cities and, consequently, migration from rural to urban areas. The net result was that on the one hand the villages were neglected and, on the other, the towns and cities witnessed rapid haphazard expansion, often leading to creation of urban slums. These changes brought in their wake and more complex health problems in rural as well as urban areas which ultimately led to development of the concept of public health. The social revolution occurred around 1940, during the Second World War. The social revolution brought into force the concept of ‘Welfare State’. It envisaged the total well being of man, paying major attention to the forgotten majority living in the villages. It was aimed at fighting the three enemies of man—poverty, ignorance and ill-health on a common platform. This followed the realization that health was not possible without improvement in economic condition or education and vice versa.
Among the developing countries, India gave a lead for bringing about the total well being of rural people by instituting the remarkable Community Development Program (1951). For intensive all-round development, the country was divided into Community Development Blocks in which ill-health was to be fought through the agency of primary health centers as recommended by the Bhore Committee. It may be mentioned that the concept of public health was fairly well developed in ancient Indian. Adequate proof of community health measures adopted during Harappa Civilization as far as 5000 years ago has been found in the old excavations at Mohenjo-Daro and at Lothal near Ahmedabad in the form of soakpits, cesspools and underground drainage.
Traditionally, a young man planning to enter the medical college has in mind the picture of a patient in agony, in relieving whose suffering by medicines he considers himself to be amply rewarded. He always thinks of alleviating the suffering of a patient but rarely about the prevention of such suffering at the level of the individual patient, his family or his community. No doubt he has to play a very important role in meeting the curative needs of society but that is not all. The community in the past has felt satisfied with that curative role. But now the developing society, in India and elsewhere, expects much more from the doctor, and the people are gradually becoming more and more conscious of their health needs. These varied expectations are reflected in the fact that the subject has been practised i
Content
- Evolution of Preventive and Social Medicine
- Basic Concepts in Community Medicine
- Epidemiological Approach in Preventive and Social Medicine
- General Epidemiology
- Physical Environment: Air
- Physical Environment: Water
- Physical Environment: Housing
- Physical Environment: Wastes and their Disposal
- Physical Environment: Place of Work or Occupation (Occupational Health)
- Environmental Pollution
- Biological Environment
- Social Environment
- Health and Law
- Host Factors and Health
- General Epidemiology of Communicable Diseases
- Respiratory Infections
- Water and Food-borne (Alimentary) Infections
- Contact Diseases
- Arthropod-borne Diseases
- Miscellaneous Zoonoses, Other Infections and Emerging Infections
- Epidemiology of Noncommunicable Diseases
- Food and Nutrition
- Biostatistics
- Research Methodology
- Demography and Vital Statistics
- Health Planning, Administration and Management
- Health Economics
- Health Care of the Community
- Information, Education, Communication and Training in Health
- Maternal and Child Health
- Family Planning and Population Policy
- School Health Services
- Geriatrics: Care and Welfare of the Aged
- Mental Health
- Health Services through General Practitioners
- International Health
- Biomedical Waste Management
- Anthrax and Bioterrorism
- Nosocomial Infections
- Oral Diseases
- Disaster Management
