Reflection on PUB610: Public Health Principles, Values, and Practice

This reflection paper, authored by a student at Australian Catholic University, provides an overview of their learning experience in PUB610, a public health course. The paper begins with a personal introduction and highlights the student's enhanced understanding of public health principles, ethical guidelines, and the scope of public health practice. The student discusses evidence-based public health, the hierarchy of evidence, and the importance of community-based health interventions. Furthermore, the reflection explores health equity, particularly concerning Australia's indigenous population, and the application of health equity assessment tools. The paper also covers the development of vaccination programs and the role of public health policies. In conclusion, the student emphasizes the practical application of the knowledge gained, aligning with the professional standards of public health in Australia and demonstrating a commitment to improving healthcare quality.

Running head: REFLECTION
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Name of the Student
Name of University
Author’s note

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Before beginning my personal reflection on PUB610, I would like to highlight few things
about academic career. I completed by bachelors in nursing from India and then joined the
Australian Catholic University for my masters. The specialization that I selected was public
health. Though I was well-aware about the term “public health” as I completed my bachelor in
nursing under the community health settings, during studying in this course I gradually came into
an understanding that my initial knowledge was extremely limited and this unit helped me to
gain a detailed understanding about the concept of public health at large.
Under the history and the principles of the public health, I learnt that effective application
of public health is guided by numerous ethical principles and guidelines. The main ethical
guidelines include respecting the rights of the service users via ensuring autonomy while
promoting community empowerment. I came across these ethical guidelines of public health
during my bachelor degree, but further reading helped me to clarify the understanding further.
Unit helped me in understanding that there are 10 different scope of practice in public health and
these are monitoring, diagnosis and investigation, informing and educating and empowering
people, mobilizing the community health partnerships, development of polices. The scope is also
guided by the enforcement of the law, linking to care, assurance of the competent workforce and
subsequent evaluation of the interventions given. Going forward I will mainly stress on
“assurance of competent workforce”. Miraglia and Asselin (2015) stated that a competent
nursing professional who gives provision for the continuous professional development is more
likely to indulge in community health partnership in an effective way and thereby helping to
monitor and diagnose the disease at large and promoting community empowerment. This
approach will help me to align with the area two of the public health standards, “Disease
Prevention and Control” (Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australia (CAPHIA),

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(2016). In my professional career I will always keep scope of the professional development and
thus helping me to increase my level of competency in public health nursing.
Evidence based public health is another something new that I got an opportunity to learn
in this. I understood the reason and the importance of the implementation of the evidence-based
strategy in the public health. Evidence-based approach in public health mainly deals with
collection of evidences under active participation of the multidisciplinary team and thereby
helping to implement the best suited plan for the health promotion of the mass (Khoury,
Iademarco & Riley, 2016). Evidence-based approach also increase the provision of the person-
centred care plan and this customised care plan is designed based on the clinical needs of the
public health users (Yardley, Morrison, Bradbury & Muller, 2015). During my bachelors in
nursing degree in India had an understanding that the primary studies are rich sources of
resources in comparison to the secondary studies. However, the unit of the evidence-based
practice helped me to understand that there is a separate hierarchy pyramid known as hierarchy
of evidences. The systematic review of the randomized control trial, which is secondary study
holds the first position (level 1) in the pyramid and thus is regarded as one of a rich source of
citing an evidence-based practice (Djulbegovic & Guyatt, 2017). In my professional career, my
practice goal will be indulge in an effective disease prevention strategy and this falls under the
competency standard 3 of public health professionals in Australia (CAPHIA, 2016). I will
mainly focus on the community based health interventions strategies as this unit outline helped
me to understand that improving the community health is the first step towards securing the
public health. I will mainly focus on the usage of the evidence-based medicines and evidence-
based interventions in order to improve the health of the community dwelling population.

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During my study in India, I was not much aware of the public health equity. While this
module helped me to understand that the promotion of the public health equity holds prime
importance in the public health nursing. According to the Australian Human Rights
Commissions (2019), in Australia a significant section of population is indigenous population,
Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. This group of population are victims of the heath
inequality. Health inequality means lack of proper access of healthcare services and lack of
proper knowledge and awareness of diseases and self-management of the disease. This reason
behind this gap in knowledge is, this indigenous population in Australia resides under poor
socio-economic determinant of health. Lack of employment, basic education, knowledge to
health and hygiene create a barrier towards comprehensive access of health (Jamieson et al.,
2016). This unit helped me to understand that importance or the concept of health equity. Health
equity is fair practice of health that is well distributed within the groups, community or the
population. Going forward, I will make use of the Health Equity Assessment Tools (HEATs) in
order to follow the system steps of the health intervention implementation and policy planning
for indigenous population. However, in order to address the multiple dimensions of health
inequalities, I will attain training in the health equity audit. Proper training in the health equity
audit (HEA) will help me to abide by the unit of the competency standards 10 that is
development of an advocacy strategy regarding any particular public health issue to influence
public health policy.
Under the public health policy development, I also gained knowledge about the
importance of proper designing of the vaccination program and how it will help to improve the
overall management of the infectious yet epidemic disease. I learnt about elective immunization
strategy and mass immunization strategy for the global elimination of any particular disease.

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In the conclusion, I would like to during my study in India I mainly had knowledge about
diseases and its nursing management. The unit of the history and principles of public health
helped to increase my knowledge in importance of the evidence-based practice in selection of the
nursing interventions and hierarchy of evidences. The unit also helped me to understand the
public health policies and its effective application in population for the improvement of the
overall health. The knowledge gained in this unit will help me to abide by the professionals
standards of the public health professionals in Australia published by Council of Academic
Public Health Institutions Australia (CAPHIA) and thereby helping to implement to improve the
overall quality of care.

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References
Australian Human Rights Commissions. (2019). Social determinants and the health of
Indigenous peoples in Australia – a human rights based approach. Access date: 26th May
2019. Retrieved from: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/social-
determinants-and-health-indigenous-peoples-australia-human-rights-based
Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australia (CAPHIA). (2016). Foundation
Competencies for Public Health Graduates in Australia. 2nd Edition. Access date: 26th
May 2019. Retrieved from:
http://caphia.com.au/testsite/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/DRAFT-CAPHIA-Comp-
Framework-2ndEd.pdf
Djulbegovic, B., & Guyatt, G. H. (2017). Progress in evidence-based medicine: a quarter century
on. The Lancet, 390(10092), 415-423. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31592-6
Jamieson, L. M., Elani, H. W., Mejia, G. C., Ju, X., Kawachi, I., Harper, S., ... & Kaufman, J. S.
(2016). Inequalities in indigenous oral health: findings from Australia, New Zealand, and
Canada. Journal of dental research, 95(12), 1375-1380.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022034516658233
Khoury, M. J., Iademarco, M. F., & Riley, W. T. (2016). Precision public health for the era of
precision medicine. American journal of preventive medicine, 50(3), 398.
doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2015.08.031

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Miraglia, R., & Asselin, M. E. (2015). Reflection as an educational strategy in nursing
professional development: An integrative review. Journal for nurses in professional
development, 31(2), 62-72. doi: 10.1097/NND.0000000000000151
Yardley, L., Morrison, L., Bradbury, K., & Muller, I. (2015). The person-based approach to
intervention development: application to digital health-related behavior change
interventions. Journal of medical Internet research, 17(1), e30. DOI: 10.2196/jmir.4055