What is public health?

Public health is about helping to stop people getting ill from conditions that can be prevented, such as those caused by weight or smoking. It's also about helping people manage long-term health conditions to prevent them becoming worse.

The social determinants of health, also known as the wider determinants of health, are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. They include social, cultural, political, economic, commercial and environmental factors.

These wider determinants have a greater influence on health than healthcare, lifestyle behaviours or genetics.

Other responsibilities are referred to in the rest of this section.

The Public Health Team

Our director of public health is Rachel Robinson. Everything the team does is based on evidence and includes:

• Health protection: protecting the health of people from infectious diseases like Covid-19, environmental hazards and through working with other partners so we're prepared to deal with emergencies
• Promotion: promotion of healthy lifestyles through public health campaigns and events
• Data surveillance: use of current data to understand the health conditions, lifestyles and patterns of disease that affect Shropshire people. This also helps to identify health inequalities across different areas of Shropshire, and enables us to plan action to address these