Public Health includes community health. Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals”. It is concerned with threats to health based on population health analysis. Public health incorporates the interdisciplinary approaches of epidemiology, biostatistics and health services, environmentak health, community health, behavioral health, health economics, public policy, insurance medicine and occupational health (respectively occupational medicine) are other important subfields. Community Health is a discipline concerned with the study and improvement of the health characteristics of different communities. Community health tends to focus on geographical areas, and includes primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare.

I think that the concept are well related but you can find some differences.

Public health can be seen as "population's health safety" obtained by detecting and measuring ( assessing "risk factors" , positive and negative health determinants). After that Public Health promotes preventive progam geared to population health, plans organizes and evaluates health can services and policies and intervenes to deal with health disparities. Community Medicine is related to policies and comprehensive health services ranging from preventive, promotive, curative to rehabilitative services. This are devoted to individuals belonging to local community taking into account also the features of this community and its environment.

You might then ask what is the difference between community health and primary health? Perhaps community health is the delivery system for public health and primary health care

Public Health includes community health. Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals”. It is concerned with threats to health based on population health analysis. Public health incorporates the interdisciplinary approaches of epidemiology, biostatistics and health services, environmentak health, community health, behavioral health, health economics, public policy, insurance medicine and occupational health (respectively occupational medicine) are other important subfields. Community Health is a discipline concerned with the study and improvement of the health characteristics of different communities. Community health tends to focus on geographical areas, and includes primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare.

Community health includes a dimension of deliberately involving the community in health decision-making. For example, primary health care structures managed by community-selected and supported health committees; community advocacy groups for adolescent rights and health; community organised conflict resolution; implication of traditional health systems (traditional healers, birth attendants, health "aunties" and so on). The community as guardian and primary actor in preserving and ensuring health of its members is a key framework for community health programs.

I tend to agree with the answer above, in that it relates to the scale with public health in my mind being something that encompasses and relates to more global issues as well as local, while I would tend to use community health for comparisons as such between communities which I guess can also be between countries so in fact it is difficult to differentiate I guess.

The biggest difference is that public health includes a responsibility for the protection of the public health through public health police powers including quarantine. Dr. Ed Richards has an excellent discussion here -

http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/slides/aaphp2000.htm

More public health basics are here: http://www.aaphp.org/Basics

Want to see it in action: From Promedmail today: A hotel worker transmitted to another coworker but the good news is that the co-worker was already under surveillance. Public Health in action. See MERS-COV - EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN (16): ITALY ex JORDAN, CONTACT CASES, WHO ProMED-mail | http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20130602.1750425

Don't see the importance? Look what happened 10 years ago with a similar virus - http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5212a1.htm

At this point of the thread I can see a common agreement on certain points.

Public Health; Primary Health Care and Community Health are tightly related and they can be mutually enforced.

Distinctive elements featuring community health could be:

Specific attention to the delivery system of Public Health and Primary Health Care policy

An area based dimension where to apply clinical intevention.

Partecipation of the community to the heath care decision making

Do you agree with me?

The key conceptual difference is the Community health is a branch of medicine which related physical health of community; the public health is a subdivision of social and behavioral science which focus on populational behavioral well-being.

I like Gianfranco and Pedros responses. I think there is also a philosophical difference. In my experience community health is more often based on a biomedical model or approach whereas Public health overlaps more with health promotion philosophies and upstream action such as policy change and is built on HP philosphies eg. Alma Ata, Jakarta and Ottawa charters.

Community health is an overarch to and an expansion of Public Health that encapsulates the aspects of groups and sub-groups of people within communities addressing psychosocial, physical, spiritual, emotional economical and other aspects of their existence that relates to their quality of life

I wondered if it is useful to add words to see how it makes sense....eg add the word "consultant in ..." to PH or CH and you perhaps find yourself bringing to mind professionals with different training; suffix "service" and different products emerge - A CH service might be responsible for delivery of a range of interventions in a local community, while the PH Service might be involved at a policy level looking at quality of water, traffic calming, or budgets for drugs?

The concept of community health and public health is not significant when we are dealing with small population and with monolithic socio-cultural and economic conditions. The difference between public health and community is significant when we are dealing with big cities and bigger populations - with the population of diverse socio-economic- cultural and ancestral backgrounds. The concept of community includes geographical locations and socio-cultural groups and it is more specific. Public health is more inclusive than community health and it is general.

I shall propose the principal diferences in the net of governance and Health Administration. In Public Health the intervencion are promote only by Public Health Administration without Communities interferente in decisions, and in Community Health (a branch of Public Health) the interventions are promote by a mutual consensus between Public Health Administration and Communities.

I agree with Pedros Plans-Rubio that Public Health includes Community Health. The basic difference is that in Public Health is that you are dealing with the health of the general population and using the principles of epidemiology, biostatistics etc to identify the public health problems and finding solutions to these problems by promotion of health or preventing health. In Community Health you are doing the same thing by finding solutions at the community level. Community can be localized in an area e.g urban population, rural population or even indigenous population. At both these levels we use primary prevention, secondary prevention,and tertiary prevention to promote health. We often get confused with Primary health care which is a tool to achieve Health for All (WHO)and it has 8 components such as .maternal and child health care/family planning, outpatients services (primary care),basic dental health, nutrition, environmental sanitation,essential drugs control of communicable diseases, health education and laboratory services. Primary health care on the other hand is primary care at first contact,continuous and comprehensive. and coordinated care provided to the population. Primary care is usually provided at the health centre in developing countries.

Dear All,

I feel that community medicine people do teaching and the public health people carry out the programmes in real!

Dear Joann

Community health is the health of a group of individuals, including the distribution of health levels within the group. "The goal is to improve the health of a given population.'s A model of care focused on population (community) that prioritizes the individual as a whole, bio psychosocial spirit.

Public health is a model of care focused on the population that prioritizes the biomedical care. Public health is understood as a way of controlling endemic diseases that threaten the economic order.

Public health could not establish a policy of democratic and effective health going beyond the interdisciplinary boundaries, ie, remains centered on hegemonic figure of the doctor.

Thus, many public health programs, endorsed by the World Health Organization, were reduced to medical care. Not prioritizing the psycho, social and spiritual context of human

As per my knowledge Community health relates to targeted population or patients

where as public health means involvement of both diseased patients and healthy people.

Hi Joann,

I like to think of Public Health as the discipline that incorporates epidemiology and disease prevention and control. Community health is the practice of improving the health of the community that draws on public health, clinical care, sociology and a range of other disciplines.

community health is a component of Public health.. So it is not possible to separate as different components. It only makes difference in size of the population, desired output and changes likely to bring in.

Yes,Pedro response direct to the topic but all other ideas enriched the exchange of knowledge . Every day we learn something new that add to our knowledge and experiences.

Public health involves the health of the nation whereas community health involves the health of the community. Public health includes community health. sometimes the two are used interchangably

Dear Dr. Kleinfelder,

. Public health looks at everyone from all over that is concerned with things that may be coming down the pike and hit all of us (like bird flu, etc.). Community health mostly involves doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals that tailor interventions to a particular community's needs, and they generally don't plan out for "the bigger picture", although they do a heck a job in their locales, since they know it better.

Regards,

On one dimension community health can be seen as a sub-set of public health, but one thing is for sure..they are both about health of human beings..and they may arrive at that common target through different routes. And to travel the different routes there may be different experiences and somewhat different skills

The answer of Pedro is quite relevant one. At one level both public health and community health (sometimes community medicine)  might be referring to the same domain of (as stated by Pedro): All organized efforts by public and private partners to promote healthy, protect health, restore health and rehabilitate handicapped. I do, however agree that public health might be of wider scope than community health. Primary health care is a strategy to deliver health care to people  including components of public health.

I agree with Prof. Omran S Habib.

Regards

SM Najim

Public Health is about health of a population, which is accomplished by 'preventing disease ...organized community efforts' (Winslow 1920). Efforts for ensuring public health need multidimensional interventions of which medical care provisioning and community  organizing/ mobilization being few of those. The ultimate goal of Public health is to improve health of its population in which large scale interventions as that of a national level (role of government) is implied as different from community health where it is at a smaller level (a city, a village and so on).

Community medicine being a specialization in medicine originally was involved in taking medicine and its developments to individuals in the community. This gradually added those interventions other than medicine also into the pool thereby becoming very similar to Public health.

Public health protects the health of the public while community health protects the health of people in a particular community.

The problem arises from different groups of professionals currently using these terms. Public health departments, academic communities and healthcare providers (even the physicians and hospital managers have their own angles) all have their own views. Often different countries use these terms slightly differently. Nothing wrong with these- all lead to the improvement and protection of the health of the people. The approaches to implementation and methods of measurement may be little different.

By the way, community health and community medicine are completely two different things.

Public health refers to health safety and wellness of all the population in a state/region. It is comprehensive and inclusive ( inhabitants, immigrants, temporarily included as foreigners students or workers). It is before a political goal and after a governmental asset and after a commitment to the local governs or administrations. They act tracing community health programs Customized on local priorities Think global act local.

Interesting discussion and from the thread we have very clear articulation of the difference between Community Health and Public Health. The plurality of interpretation of concepts is always a problem and as these disciplines develop we see more trajectories and dimensions for example "Community Health Nursing"; "Population Health Management".