Public Health Hotline: The Hawaii J Med Public Health: Informing Population-based and Individual Health Care Systems

摘要

This is the inaugural edition of the Hawai‘i Journal of Medicine and Public Health. In December, the editorial boards of the Hawai‘i Medical Journal and Hawai‘i Journal of Public Health made the wise decision to merge to better manage our resources and foster improved collaboration between the medical and public health communities. Historically, physicians have been encouraged to view the illness of their patients within an environmental, social, and behavioral context.1 During the 19th and 20th centuries, there were strong collaborative efforts between the fields of public health and medicine to address infectious disease associated with urbanization and industrialization. Public health practitioners worked at the community level to prevent the spread of disease before the development of various immunizations and medical interventions. Physicians, in addition to providing individual care, were also advocates for public health sanitation policies.2.