Public Health Supports Whole Health

In the United States, 1 in 6 adults report fair or poor health.1 The concept of whole health refers to the interconnected impact of one’s physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic factors on health outcomes.2 Protecting whole health requires a health ecosystem that is intentionally coordinated in which multiple sectors, including healthcare, public health, community agencies, and policymakers, work together. The traditional healthcare system is often identified as being on the front lines of protecting whole health with a focus on the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and injuries. However, evidence points to factors outside the walls of the health system as holding the majority stake in what drives health outcomes.3,4 These include genetic factors; the social and physical environment into which people are born, grow, work, live, worship, and age and their behaviors that are often responses to these environmental and genetic conditions.5,6 Central to protecting whole health is an emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention, which is the mission and work of public health. Public health protects health and improves lives by promoting heathy lifestyles, detecting and responding to new and emerging health threats, and putting science into action to prevent disease, among other strategies. Public health protects communities from health threats across the world; in the United States, public health operates at the federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial levels