Assistant Professor Dr. Aysen Kamal Mohammed Nouri and Lecturer Dr. Houra Karim Abdul Ali, from the Community Health Nursing Department at the College of Nursing, University of Baghdad, participated in a local conference on “Public Health” under the patronage of His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Saleh Al-Hasnawi.
The conference discussed several important issues, noting that public health encompasses all organized efforts (public and private) to prevent disease, promote health, and prolong life among individuals. Public health focuses on the entire population, so it operates within an integrated system that includes a range of methodologies such as epidemiology, medicine, the environment, healthy behaviors, and vital statistics.
The conference also emphasized the expansion of public health activities, such as vaccination campaigns and infectious disease control, promoting safer and healthier foods, reducing disease and mortality, providing family planning services, and raising awareness about the harms of smoking.
It stressed that the main functions of public health management include reducing the risks of all epidemic diseases, identifying health problems, and working to solve them by all possible means.
The conference concluded by emphasizing the need to prepare for and respond to future pandemics, strengthen cooperation, and improve public health under the slogan “Health is everyone’s responsibility… Partnership and Commitment.” The recommendations will work to implement the following: strengthening cooperation; building strong partnerships between different sectors (government, private, and civil society); preventive health initiatives; focusing on promoting preventive health and expanding the scope of basic health services; and raising awareness of the importance of health and shared responsibility in achieving a better health environment.
This active participation by the Faculty of Nursing comes as part of the faculty’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 4 (Quality Education). by integrating national developments and trends in public health into academic curricula, Goal 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) by strengthening academic cooperation with the Ministry of Health to advance the health sector, and Goal 3 (Good Health and Well-being), which is at the heart of the conference, by supporting preventive strategies and health preparedness.
