Public Health, Occupational Health and Epidemiology Conference

Public Health Engineering: Specifying health improvements for people from professionals of many fields

Public health engineering is the application of engineering knowledge and practice towards the attainment of public health objectives in order to tackle health issues in built environment. It encompasses important aspects of infrastructure, including water and waste, sanitation, and ventilation to eliminate diseases and diseases causing factors. Whether the client is a city or a village, public health engineering is an important component in the protection of those communities because of the critical impact on safe water, sanitation and health.

Water quality is one of the important branches in the public health engineering. Availability of safe water especially pure water for human consumption is still the major issue with regard to water health and diseases. Specialists in this area develop plans for and oversee processes of water purification and supply together with assessment of water quality so that populations, including those in developing nations, can gain access to clean water.

Sanitation and waste management are also other essential subsectors in public health engineering. The correct disposal of wastes, effective sewage disposal and solid waste disposal reduces environmental pollution and diseases. Technical solutions achieved in these areas serve not only the purpose of community health protection but also help prevent pollution and overuse of resources.

Public health engineering also continues to branch out to common healthy structures including adequately ventilated structures and safe play fields. For example, the development of parks in urban centers enhances the availability of quality air besides maintaining the citizen’s standard health through, stress relieve and exercise.

This field includes a strong coordination between engineers, public health officials and the policy makers as far as the strategies for sustainable health solutions is concerned. This paper concludes that to tackle the new forms of health problems arising from accelerated urbanization and changing climatic conditions, it is helpful to apply new engineering solutions to protect health in the global context.