People do read things that are purely theoretical like philosophy
Sanskrit is a dead language. It is of no practical use other than during yagna and pooja. Yet there are people who opt to learn dead sciences and then are motivated to teach them, improve their teaching methods, publish their work and insights, and it gradually becomes a field of scientific discourse. English grammar, for example, can keep building up, we can go on and on to study it, discuss it and ornament it by our own way of putting in words.
Religious philosophy is interesting, we get to learn about laws, lifestyle, goodness, morals, doctrines that were expected to be followed by people. Not all hold good today, and like modern laws, many such morals and rules practiced elaborately earlier are also amended. We are living in an era of comfort. Most people know how much practical it is to follow traditional ethics and rituals bound by religion. But people do study religion enthusiastically. This is because they are more of culture oriented, and they want to analyze scriptures as objectively as possible. People with a morality oriented mind, or the ones who are critical thinkers and who want to trigger higher order thinking, mostly learn religion and its philosophy. If we can read Marcus Aurelius then why not religion.
The idea behind reading and learning something obsolete is to engage ourselves intellectually. We become patrons of our subject, and even though not much needed, we read thermodynamics, mechanics from scratch in Physics, if we opt to learn it. Most basic knowledge is necessary to build up, then we can diversify.
When we learn public health, John Snow’s experiment is the initial instigation. We go on studying about infections and germs yet there was no need to execute most of this knowledge (due to better living standards and vaccinations) until recently when Covid-19 scene required to set-up isolation wards in hospitals that were deconstructed in most developed countries. People who studied infectious diseases came to the limelight. Infection control principles had to be deployed, so something as unforeseen as this pandemic, required resurfacing of public health principles, and now many youngsters are motivated to learn the subject in their colleges as a major or as an elective subject.
The future of public health is bright. It is not purely a theoretical subject. Many more diseases can be cured, nutrition and environmental changes can build a better lifestyle and finally personalized care can be enhanced by practicing preventive medicine. Let every person count should be the motto of all public health practitioners. Research for better living and health is an ongoing process. Therefore, basic science as it is can lead to revolutions. Something as prestigious as eradicating polio, providing systems imparting “health for all” have been accomplished with great effort, it was planned for decades, extrapolated and forecasted. We had to replan, and goals and resource management became very effective with managerial skills and better administration of plans. We came a long way, but yet the journey is dynamic, and never ending.
Health is a social issue and is really sensitive to both individually and environmentally important attributes. So providing for it is the interim duty of all national and international agencies (health in all sectors). As an example of its scope, we know that breast milk is considered the best meal for infants providing adequate growth and nutrition. But several new studies are targeting lactating mother’s nutrition that can improve infant’s health. Due to poor storage of cereals and pulses in poor living conditions, mothers pass ochratoxins and aflatoxins to their infants. These are agricultural by-products, molds. Even cooking cannot evade these toxins. They can cause growth faltering as well as cancers in children. Can breast milk really become harmful in poor settings? We always thought that it prevents malnutrition and boosts child’s immunity!! How much can be the risk, how to bring down the contamination of grains, and how long can a mother be exposed to unhealthy eating…are domains that public health needs to answer. This is the next leap, although known, we can add further to child’s health as under-5 malnutrition and mortality has been reduced greatly by promoting lactation. Now we need to enhance the quality of mother’s nutrition itself in pregnancy and lactation to provide the best quality milk and nutrition to infants for better health, even in deprived settings.
To understand the philosophy of community health which is purely theoretical, we need to take up this everchanging field of knowledge to the next level. Health is subjective, with several theories that model the field for practice. The philosophy is ongoing, we need to induce or deduce concepts, like as earlier cola drinking was considered as a healthy beverage, which now is just empty calorie, promotes insulin resistance and diabesity. This knowledge involves translation of theory to practical research. It is more about applied science instead of complete science.
Public health is a pure philosophy, but has practical implications also. Prevention is better than cure, liaison with genetic technologists, today the field has become very sophisticated to meet the challenges of the modern world. Only the practitioners need to upgrade themselves. Sometimes what is dead, needs to be revoked with the help of new methods in science.
In order to specialize as a public health expert, know your predilection, it could be adolescent health, social pediatrics, preventive cardiology, geriatrics, precision public health, precision nutrition, administration, preventive dermatology, primary health care and so on. Those interested must become determined to contribute in their field of interest. By just learning the basics, no philosophy should become actually obsolete, we can create dynamism through our work, and build up from the basics. Do not stagnate, create.
