Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPHVice President for Global Health

Emory University

decision-making based on data and evidence (vital statistics, surveillance and outbreak investigations, laboratory science)

a focus on population rather than individuals

a quest for social justice and equality

a focus on prevention rather than curative care

Public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficacy through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the education

of the individual in personal hygiene, the

organization of medical and

C.E.A. Winslow 1920

John Last defines public health as “one of the efforts to protect, promote and restore the people’s health. It is the combination of science, skills and beliefs that is directed to the maintenance and improvement of the health of all the people through collective or social actions.”

Dictionary of Epidemiology (2001)

International Health

Health work involving countries beyond one’s own, with a geographic focus on developing nations and often with a content focus on infectious and tropical diseases, water and sanitation, malnutrition, and maternal and child health.

What is the interdisciplinary scope of “global health”?