4 Best “Gifts” That Public Health England Has Given To The General Public
Public Health England has contributed to the country’s national health in a tremendous manner over the years. The PHE is essentially an executive agency associated with the Department of Health and Social Care in the UK. It began its operations in 2013 with the agenda to improve the overall health and wellness of all residents of the United Kingdom, and it came into being after the National Health Service was reorganized. The PHE’s aim is also to reduce health differences amongst the general public, protect them from health hazards, cater to public health emergencies, supporting the NHS in immunization programmes, and conducting health research in the UK. Undoubtedly, the PHE is a gift to public health.
The PHE’s contributions in the UK have seen results in public mortality, health, longevity, and widespread vaccine development and use. The institution has taken great care to implement advanced epidemiological methods at a national and community level both. Despite the controversies surrounding its conduct and overall demeanor and despite its ups and downs, the PHE has done a lot of good for the people of the UK, and listed below are some of the best gifts the PHE has given us:
1. Be Clear on Cancer campaign
The “Be Clear on Cancer” campaign by PHE focused on creating awareness and hence improving early diagnosis of signs and symptoms of cancer. The campaign aimed to encourage individuals to see their doctor whenever they felt a sign or symptom of cancer and hence an early diagnosis would be made possible. The campaign ran on lung cancer, bowel cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer and oesophago-gastric cancer.
2. Change4Life campaign
The “Change4Life” campaign by the PHE was essentially aimed at tackling obesity and subsequent health problems by encouraging individuals to eat healthy and exercise. The main targets in this campaign were families with children between the ages of 5-11. The campaign performed very well as it capitalized on the social media climate and the campaign was mainly conducted on social media. The campaign has multiple online and offline resources associated with healthy amounts of consumption.
3. Health Harms
Launched in 2014, the Health Harms campaign by the PHE aimed at educating the public about the consequences of smoking and the associated health hazards. The campaign encourages smokers to try to quit smoking by making them understand the dangers associated with smoking. The campaign also had a number of free tools and resources to help smokers such as an online plan customized to the individual to help them quit smoking. The government also provided anti-smoking aids and a dedicated app called Smokefree to help individuals quit. The government also advocated the use of vapes and vaping as a much better alternative and as a helping tool for them to quit smoking.
4. ACT FAST campaign
The ACT FAST campaign by the PHE focused on strokes and aimed to educate the general public about the signs and symptoms of having a stroke. Strokes are medical emergencies and can be fatal if timely action isn’t taken. Hence, the campaign aimed to educate people about the symptoms of a stroke and about how to help someone who is having a stroke. The acronym FAST was essentially a test on stroke identification, and all four letters signified something. F referred to the face and for the onlooker to check whether the patient’s face has fallen to one side and/or whether they could smile. A referred to their arms and to check whether the patient could raise their arms and hold their position. S referred to speech and to check if their speech was slurred. T referred to T and it meant to call 999 if any of the above three symptoms were found. The campaign did really well and the acronym is used till date.