About Us
Healthy People in Healthy Communities
Mission
Advance the conditions that support optimal health and well-being for all
Values
- Equity: We collaborate with public, private and community partners to ensure just systems, policies and practices eliminate gaps in health outcomes and lead to optimal health.
- Inclusivity: We honor the dignity and worth of all people and create welcoming environments that invite and sustain meaningful engagement with people and organizations that represent diversity in experience, thought, and culture.
- Collaboration: We promote, nurture, and honor partnerships with our employees, community partners and residents to strengthen our capacity to accomplish shared goals.
- Accountability: We act with transparency and integrity as responsible stewards of public funds
- Compassion: We treat each other and those we serve with respect, kindness, humility, and empathy.
- Quality: We utilize state-of-the-art science, best and promising practices, and continuous improvement to maintain and enhance program efficiency and efficacy.
- Innovation: We embrace new approaches to address challenges that are too complex to solely rely on proven practices.
- Leadership: We are recognized throughout the field for our innovative programming and community-driven strategies that transform systems, policies, and practices.
Public Health Leadership Team
Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd,
Director, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Muntu Davis, MD, MPH,
Los Angeles County Health Officer
About the Department of Public Health
Keeping Us Healthy Here in Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health protects health, prevents disease, and promotes health and well being for all persons in Los Angeles County. Our focus is on the Los Angeles County population as a whole, and we conduct our activities through a network of public health professionals throughout the community. Every day, the population of Los Angeles is protected by hundreds of public health measures. Drinking safe water, vaccinating our children, and health education regarding the harmful effects of unprotected sex are examples of public health measures fundamental to good health. This site provides information about other programs and interventions conducted by the Los Angeles County's Public Health and other community agencies that aim to protect and promote health for residents countywide.
National Health Objectives: Recently the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published Healthy People 2010: Understanding and Improving Health. This large volume (over 10 megabits) represents the third national effort to establish health objectives for the Nation.
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Healthy People 2010 reflects the scientific advances that have taken place over the past 20 years in preventive medicine, disease surveillance, vaccine and therapeutic development, and information technology.
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The report mirrors the changing demographics of our country, the changes that have taken place in health care, and the growing impact of global forces on our national health status.
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Healthy People 2010 incorporates input from a broad cross-section of people as well as scientific experts from many agencies.
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There are 467 objectives in 28 focus areas, making Healthy People 2010 an encyclopedic compilation of health improvement opportunities for the next decade.
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This set of Leading Health Indicators will help individuals and communities target the actions to improve health. The Leading Health Indicators will also help communities track the success of these actions.
Evaluating What Works in Public Health: To address this question a national Task Force on Community Preventive Services was created consisting of 15 national experts (including our own Director of Public Health and Health Officer, Dr. Jonathan Fielding) from local health departments, managed care, academia, behavioral and social sciences, communications sciences, mental health, epidemiology, quantitative policy analysis, decision and cost-effectiveness analysis, information systems, primary care, and management and policy.
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The Task Force has established a Web site which is in the form of a Community Guide dealing with health interventions. A variety of health topics important to communities, public health agencies and health care systems are addressed. The Guide summarizes what is known about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of population based interventions designed to promote health, prevent disease, injury, disability and premature death as well as exposure to environmental hazards.
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Systematic reviews are presented for interventions by health topic and organized as chapters within the Community Guide. These reviews evaluate whether there is sufficient evidence to show that an intervention is effective or not. For those interventions where there is insufficient evidence of effectiveness, the Community Guide provides guidance for further prevention research.
www.thecommunityguide.org www.cdc.gov www.who.int
What We Do (brochure)