Preventive medicine is an independent subject group differentiated from medicine. It takes human population as the research object, applies the theories of biomedicine, environmental medicine and social medicine, and studies the occurrence and distribution of diseases and various factors affecting health by combining macro and micro methods.
Formulate preventive countermeasures and measures to prevent diseases, promote health and improve the quality of life. As an important part of medicine, preventive medicine is produced and developed in the process of human struggle for survival and development and various factors that endanger health. "Prevention first" has always been the basic policy of health work in China.
Public health changes with the development of social economy, and the understanding of public health also changes with the development of the times, the progress of science and technology, the changes of national politics, economy and people's ideology. Different times have different definitions of the connotation and extension of public health, and different groups have different understandings of public health, even in academic circles.
Challenges of preventive medicine and public health.
1. Infectious diseases are still the main diseases that seriously threaten people's lives and health. In today's world, infectious diseases are still diseases with high morbidity and mortality, which threaten not only China and developing countries, but also some developed countries.
Infectious diseases that ravage mankind are mainly manifested in two aspects: on the one hand, some infectious diseases that are thought to have been controlled for a long time are coming back; On the other hand, infectious diseases that have been controlled may rise again for various reasons, and the incidence rate has increased significantly; Moreover, dozens of newly discovered infectious diseases are seriously harmful.
2. The harm of non-communicable chronic diseases to people's health has intensified. There is a new trend in the incidence of chronic diseases, and the disease spectrum and cause of death in China are changing. The death rate caused by chronic diseases such as hypertension, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, tumor, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is rising, which has become the most important cause of death among Chinese residents.
At the same time, the incidence of chronic diseases is younger. In addition, smoking, unreasonable diet, lack of physical activity, obesity and other risk factors continue to rise, coupled with aging, urbanization, environmental pollution and occupational hazards and other factors, the incidence of some tumors has risen rapidly in some areas.