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What is the public health approach? Let's see.

Overview of the Public Health Approach

It is a misconception that healthcare comes exclusively, or even largely, from the private medical community. The public health approach is a unique and powerful way to perceive and address national and local health issues. It deals not with individual patients, but with the community as a whole. Public health interventions are community-focused, population-based interventions aimed at preventing a disease or condition, or limiting death or disability from a disease or condition. Public health interventions are not focused on questions of appropriate treatment for individual patients. Rather, public health interventions answer the question: "What approach will have the maximum benefit for the largest population?" The public health approach does not abandon individual patients and their care. Rather, it broadens the reach of healthcare to entire populations.

In its 1988 study, The Future of Public Health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) outlined the mission of public health: