The world of public health is very complex and misunderstood most of the time by public. While there are many branches of public health, the common goal remains – which is protecting the health status of community, world, or organization. To properly execute strategies and know what works what doesn’t, the one or group who implements the strategy needs to know what to refer to and where to start, because at stake could be hundreds and even thousands of lives. The evidence based public health relies on previous knowledge from peer-reviewed publications, tested implementations and generalized phenomena that has proven to show a positive outcome. To address the question of evidence based public health, the one not only should rely on his/her expertise in the field but also the highly reputable publications that yielded positive results, however the hypothesis of one country may not be necessary acceptable in another, but the basis of this foundation should be started there.

In order to break down the evidence based public health the following information must follow: [1]

1.     The best available scientific evidence (perfect example pubmed, medline etc.).

2.     Utilization of gathered data and information system from the given region or community.

3.     Program-planning framework.

4.     Community decision making.

5.     Quantitative and qualitative research.

6.     Observational approach (uniqueness of region might trigger these methods to be employed).

7.     Forming the scientifically sound approach to tackle the problem.

8.     Utilization of experience from the past implementations. (Cross-reference in the similar situations).

The big emphasis in approaching the issue or even identifying the issue should be in assessing the community and quantifying the issue, because without properly hypothesized scientific questions, one cannot properly address the challenges of public health in a truly evidence-based manner. It’s very interesting to note that economic and medical evaluation should also take place, as economy in the given region can uncover the questions that can answer itself. The questions like what is the proportion of homeless people have access to the food source? This way we can automatically filter the questions that co-relate to medicine, which is malnutrition or starvation issues in the given region (p.e African sub-Sahara).

Finally, while introducing the policy of public health – the given administration should thoroughly weigh-in the pros and cons and how this might affect the community on the long run. Therefore in order to make a proper policy decision making – the government should have established chain of command that thoroughly understands the issue and can communicate the feedback to the policy makers, so the cycle of implementation-and-feedback could be completed. [2]

References:

1.     Brownson RC, Fielding JE, Maylahn CM. Evidence-based public health: a fundamental concept for public health practice. Annu Rev Public Health. 2009;30:175-201. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.031308.100134. PMID: 19296775.

2.     Evidence based public health training. National Association of Chronic Disease Directors. (2021, March 23). Retrieved October 7, 2021, from https://chronicdisease.org/page/leadershipdevelopment/evidence-based-public-health-training/.