The Base Of Public Health

Caring for the group you belong in is different than caring for yourself, or even your household. Your basic needs depend on their accessibility to you. And only part of that is about money.

Your biggest needs are food and water. And they have to be near you and safe to be available when you need them.

Maslow would tell you that meeting your bio needs is the most important thing in your life,

Hippocrates always preferred that people eat and drink locally, From the air, soil and water you are used to. He said it was important for our long term health.

And John Snow wanted you to be sure that your toilet and your drinking water were not confused.

You might think your health is your personal responsibility, but these are all public health issues.

And now they are environmental issues. Because the world is seeing more droughts and famines. More pests like locusts. and pollinators like bees are becoming endangered, some already are (esp if Doug Ford is nearby).

With the heat, there are more fires in the summer and the icebergs are melting so the water table is lower.

No matter what you do, you can’t as an individual act to fix these things.

The rest is catch up though. Without those things in place, you will never have enough nurses and doctors. They should just be there to vaccinate you, help your child be born, check if that bone is broken or not, and help you die peacefully. If all things were equal.

But they’re not. Public health is a political beast, as we’ve seen during covid. And the people most likely to need help will be the poor, and marginalized people. The discards the govt would rather not have to deal with. But they cost a LOT to deal with, because we don’t build a system that includes their needs.

Again, there’s nothing we as individuals can do about that.

The govt and big business are well aware of all this. They just don’t care.