"Even a moderate amount of sugary beverage consumption - we are talking about one can of soda every day - is associated with a significant 20% increased risk of heart disease even after adjusting for a wide range of cardiovascular risk factors."
Identifying risk factors for disease is public health.
"Clinic nurses around the world are being trained to use a solution of table vinegar - 5% acetic acid - to detect cancer. By brushing it directly onto the cervix, nurses can see within three to five minutes whether any precancerous lesions exist, because the vinegar turns them white."
Accessible screening tools are public health.
"An international team of researchers analyzed 26 studies that included nearly 20,000 women from 14 countries and found that the risk of cervical cancer in women who used IUDs was nearly half that of women who never used them."
Contraceptive choice is public health. Reducing cancer rates is also public health.
"'We know that solutions as simple as keeping newborns warm, clean and properly breastfed can keep them alive,' said Save the Children's Dr. Joy Lawn, a study coauthor, in the statement, 'but many countries are in desperate need of more and better trained front-line health workers to teach these basic lifesaving practices.'"
Infant mortality rates are public health. Health education is also public health.
"Forget mosquito netting and bug spray. Researchers are focusing on another way to reduce the numbers of the malaria-spreading blood-suckers: introduce spermless males into the population. Female mosquitoes who mated with these genetically altered males produced sterile eggs that didn't hatch."
Reducing disease vectors is public health.
"While maternal mortality rates throughout Africa are falling, in South Africa they rose from 150 deaths per 100,000 births in 1998 to 625 in 2007. The authors wrote that South Africa's goal of reducing its high maternal death rate by 75% between 1998 and 2015 will not occur if the current lack of oversight and accountability for recurrent problems in the health system and abuses carried out by medical staff are allowed to continue."
Maternal mortality rates and maternity care practices are both public health.
Proper infant feeding and instilling good eating examples early on is public health. Glorifying soda drinks to children is NOT public health.
Vehicle crash test videos!
Vehicle safety is public health.
[But, really, these are just awesome videos.]
How much sunscreen should I wear?
Making health education fun and easy to understand helps public health. Also, sun safety is public health.