Public Health: Government's Role (Essay Sample)

Governments Role in Public Health
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Governments Role in Public Health
Public health plays a major role in promoting the welfare of a nation and ensuring that the public is shielded from the spread of contagious ailments and hazardous environmental factors. Public health thus essentially ensures that the entire population has access to healthcare services of high quality and safety. This sector is among the best things the government can invest in (CHS Administration Handbook, 2021). The government plays a critical role in the public health sector. The roles include voluntary services creation of laws and regulatory bodies, financing public health, collecting and spreading information, and protecting public health. The government participates in promoting, preserving, and protecting public health and safety at every level at the federal, tribal, state, and local levels. The federal government, in particular, has created and ensured funding for various programs and organizations that play a critical role in ensuring public safety and health. There are federal agencies that play several roles in public health, among them developing a workforce for public health (Century, 2021). Some of these agencies include; Health Resources and Services Administration, National Institutes of Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. These agencies are found within the Department of Health and Human Services. The state and local governments are constitutionally regarded as the primary operators in public health. This provision is made through the local health departments. These local health departments operate at the frontlines to provide basic public health services to the American communities. The government has been able to set up close to 299 public health departments across the nation. They are distributed according to a wide range of factors such as population and geographical size of an area.
Despite the government's great effort in public health, including enormous spending, it is still yet to reach the required standards in terms of performance. Most of the American people are still not contented with the services provided (Roberts, 2021). Some of the factors that have created this discontent include the high cost of accessing the medical services and lack of proper handling and usage of information. These two challenges have negatively affected public health in many ways. For instance, the American people are deeply worried about the ever-increasing cost of healthcare services, especially in the wake of the economic recession brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. The government's funding and input in public health are not enough to cater to the citizens' health needs (Roberts, 2021). This situation translates to few Americans accessing services like health insurance because they cannot afford them. Another challenge that has blighted the public health system is the lack of proper handling of health information. According to information is a vital part of the healthcare system. The general public benefit from the information by knowing the cost of healthcare services and the performance levels of their health service providers. The service providers, in turn, use the information gained from the patients to conduct researches that will help improve the quality of health services. The health sector should increase its data capturing output safely and instantly by increasing data collection through a digital system.
The health sector can achieve this new method by implementing Electronic Health Records on a large scale. According to research by Roberts (2021), only 23 percent of the United States population use Electronic Health Records, despite the survey indicating that up to 23 percent of the population are willing to adopt the system. Implementing this policy will increase the efficiency of which health information is collected and used in the country. This system, in turn, will increase the quality of healthcare services and boost citizens' confidence in the public health system. The implementation will be done by the National Institutes of Health, which will train the public health officials on how to handle the platform. The officials will, in turn, educate the general public on how to submit their information using this new system. The local health department will then play a key role in rolling out this program to the communities and ensuring success. Because this policy is fast and secure, and