Indian Public Health Professional Network

Rationale

Public Health is defined as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and improving quality of life through organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, communities, and individuals”. The necessity of “Public Health” had never been felt so vital across the globe than during these times of COVID-19 pandemic. The Indian and global experience had underscored how important are the “organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, communities, and individuals” in halting COVID-19 pandemic destructive force. We witnessed in India, a collective public health effort pivoted by the general public, political leadership, health workforces, regulators, public and private sector partners, and media in addressing the dreaded pandemic.

Covid-19 had underscored the scopes and potentials of Public Health as a scientific discipline and this would be the right moment for the public health professionals of the country to seize the opportunity to set their identity and agenda for their future. The example set by the Covid-19 pandemic could serve as an example for organized, people-centered, and evidence-driven public health interventions for addressing the health priorities and disease burden of national importance in India.

Public health professionals as a dynamic and interdisciplinary scientific cadre could play a crucial role in realizing the national health goals of the country. It’s high time that Public Health should be recognized as a unique and distinguished academic, research, and professional discipline in this country, rather than an annexure to the existing bio-medical centered system. Public Health Professionals who play a pivotal role in achieving the national health goals must be recognized and deserve a distinguished identity and representation in the national and sub-national health workforce of India.

Public health is a conglomeration of many cross-cutting disciplines and as an academic discipline in India, it is rendered in 49 institutions which predominantly includes a two-year post-graduate diploma and Master’s degree in public health. Being rendered mainly as a postgraduate course, in which bachelor degree holders from different educational qualifications get enrolled and exit, public health professionals lack an innate identity for themselves. This has resulted in a situation in which there is a lack of a common platform for the public health professionals in India to collectively identify themselves as one of the potential health workforce cadres best suited for the needs and demands of the country.

At present, there is an absence of networking among public health professionals which could aid the exchange of information, ideas, experiences, motivations between them and could greatly help self-organize as a professional community. We as a larger network could better sense our scopes, opportunities in this nation and could be better equipped to address the existing barriers for us in our professional development and recognition. To organize ourselves as a network would be the first step.

We propose Indian Public Health Professional Network (I-PHPN) with the vision to foster a vibrant public health workforce in India and to better serve the nation towards achieving its public health goals

We have the following objectives
1. Creating a common communication platform for qualified public health professionals from all States/UTs of India.

2. To foster academic, professional, research, and business collaboration between qualified public health professionals from all States/UTs of India for a common good cause.

3. Organization of academic, professional, research, and business events of public health relevance and importance through mutual participation of qualified public health professionals from all parts of the country.

4. Evolving a social media platform for qualified public health professionals from all parts of the country to make effective communication.

5. Creating a pan Indian registered association for qualified public health professionals representative of all regions and background

6. Conducting Advocacy and other activities to achieve recognition for qualified Public Health professionals for regular employment under government and government-controlled institutes, organizations, programs at central and state level.

We like to form formal, positive, engaging, personal, and strategic associations, with public health professionals and create an environment that encourages collaboration, expression of views and ideas, mutual assistance, and respect in India beyond the collection of names and contact numbers or adding a distant/mutual connection in a website, and social media groups.

LinkedIn page
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/indian-public-health-professionals-network-3179b1201_publichealth-diversity-india-activity-6742801780238811136-BLCg

Warm regards
I-PHPN
Dr. Kumaravel Ilangovan

Indian Public Health Professionals Network on LinkedIn: #publichealth #diversity #india We propose Indian Public Health Professional Network (I-PHPN) with the a vision to foster a vibrant public health workforce in India and to better serve...