The Public Health Mentor

In a previous post, we began unpacking key concepts and definitions in public health. If you haven’t read it, you may find it helpful to start there. Here, let’s explore some more components of the public health lexicon.

1. Environmental & Occupational Health
2. One Health
3. Health Policy & Governance
4. Health Economics
5. Health Informatics

Environmental & Occupational Health

Environmental and occupational health are subfields within public health. Environmental health focuses on how environmental factors such as air, water, housing, and exposure to pollutants affect human health. It emphasizes prevention through environmental protection, regulation, and sustainable practices. Currently, environment health largely focuses on urbanization and other anthropogenic environments including industrial activity, natural resource extraction, and transportation systems that support modern economic and social life (1).

Occupational health is concerned with protecting and promoting health and safety by identifying and managing factors in the workplace that can affect health. It aims to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and long-term health risks. The aim of occupational health is ” to promote and maintain highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations” (2). This can be achieved by creating safe and supportive working conditions , and promoting organizational practices and workplace cultures that value safety, participation, and effective management systems to strengthen health and safety.

One Health

One Health is an integrated approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, plant, and environmental health. Through this approach, public health extends beyond a human centered focus.

A recent definition of One health is “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent” (3).

Issues such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), joint surveillance of zoonotic and vector borne diseases, climate related health impacts, and food safety fall within the purview of the One health approach.

Health Policy & Governance

Health policy refers to the decisions, plans, and actions by governments and organizations to achieve health goals. Different countries govern health in different ways. In some countries and settings, individuals pay directly for health services, and much of health research and workforce development is led by the private sector. In others, governments play a central role in ensuring access to care, supporting research, and planning the health workforce. All of these fall under the scope of health policy and health systems governance.

Strong health policy and governance is fundamental to delivering accessible, equitable, affordable and efficient healthcare. It involves fair resource allocation, clear regulations, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating health system performance.

Health Economics

Health economics focuses on how resources are allocated within the health sector. It provides tools to assess efficiency, cost-effectiveness of interventions, economic evaluation of programs etc. In other words, the ‘value’ of health and the demand and supply of healthcare. It also includes behavioral analysis such as why people make certain health choices, and health affecting behaviors.

In short, health economics applies economic principles to health and healthcare, thereby informing policy and governance.

Health Informatics

Health informatics involves the use of information systems, data, and digital technologies to support health care delivery, public health practice, and decision-making. This includes electronic health records, disease surveillance systems, health information systems, and digital health tools. A highlight of health informatics is the use of data analytics to form insights and support innovations in health care.

Simply put, it is to store, manage, and share health related data.

In addition to data storage and exchange, health informatics is an interprofessional discipline that focuses on transforming biomedical data into meaningful knowledge to support scientific inquiry, problem-solving, and informed decision-making.

References

1. Jennings B. Environmental and Occupational Public Health. 2016 Apr 13. In: H. Barrett D, W. Ortmann L, Dawson A, et al., editors. Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe [Internet]. Cham (CH): Springer; 2016. Chapter 6. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK435781/ doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-23847-0_6
2. World Health Organization. Occupational health [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2025 [cited 2025 Dec 23]. Available from: https://www.who.int/health-topics/occupational-health
3. One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP); Adisasmito WB, Almuhairi S, Behravesh CB, Bilivogui P, Bukachi SA, Casas N, Cediel Becerra N, Charron DF, Chaudhary A, Ciacci Zanella JR, Cunningham AA, Dar O, Debnath N, Dungu B, Farag E, Gao GF, Hayman DTS, Khaitsa M, Koopmans MPG, Machalaba C, Mackenzie JS, Markotter W, Mettenleiter TC, Morand S, Smolenskiy V, Zhou L. One Health: A new definition for a sustainable and healthy future. PLoS Pathog. 2022 Jun 23;18(6):e1010537. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1010537. PMID: 35737670; PMCID: PMC9223325.
4. Jen MY, Mechanic OJ, Teoli D. Informatics. [Updated 2023 Sep 4]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470564/