{"id":140,"date":"2025-12-10T12:14:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/about-public-health\/what-is-public-health\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T12:14:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T12:14:40","slug":"what-is-public-health","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/about-public-health\/what-is-public-health\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Public Health Team does"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page-section clearfix has_background_image has_mobile_background_image text-dark\" id=\"block_acf-block-6a28196e915aa\"><div class=\"page-inner\"><div class=\"page-innerblocks\">\n<section class=\"parent-banner clearfix no-padding\" id=\"block_acf-block-6a28196e91ced\"><div class=\"banner-outer\"><div class=\"grid-container\"><div class=\"banner-show parent-banner-outer parent-banner-1\" data-aos=\"fade\"><div class=\"grid-x grid-margin-x banner-top\"><div class=\"medium-9 large-8 cell medium-order-1 content-1\"><div class=\"banner-content\"><header><h1>What the Public Health Team does<\/h1><\/header><p>Public health promotes and protects the health of everyone living in Devon. We work to create the conditions for people to live longer, healthier and happier lives. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-default wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Our Public Health Team works to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of everyone living in Devon. Many&nbsp;things affect our health, not just how we use healthcare \u2013 but the&nbsp;conditions&nbsp;into which we are born, the&nbsp;places we live in, our income,&nbsp;our&nbsp;homes&nbsp;and&nbsp;our&nbsp;jobs.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-default\">What&nbsp;we do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We use data,&nbsp;research&nbsp;and local insight to understand the needs of our communities. This helps us&nbsp;plan and deliver&nbsp;a range of public health&nbsp;services&nbsp;which keep people well and prevent ill health. We&nbsp;work&nbsp;in&nbsp;partnership with many&nbsp;organisations to&nbsp;tackle health issues together and&nbsp;create healthier communities.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People across Devon experience&nbsp;different levels&nbsp;of health \u2013 with some people living with poorer health than others.&nbsp;We want to reduce these unfair differences and create the&nbsp;opportunities for everyone to&nbsp;improve their&nbsp;health and wellbeing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&nbsp;also&nbsp;have a responsibility to protect our residents\u2019 health from&nbsp;threats that&nbsp;could be a risk to public health, for example&nbsp;climate change&nbsp;or infectious diseases.&nbsp;We work with our Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response&nbsp;team&nbsp;and&nbsp;the UK Health Security Agency to&nbsp;plan&nbsp;and prepare for such events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How we work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list is-style-dcc-ticks-list\">\n<li>We&nbsp;use data and evidence to understand&nbsp;how health and wellbeing changes over time and across&nbsp;different parts&nbsp;of Devon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;plan and fund&nbsp;a range of&nbsp;services that&nbsp;support&nbsp;people&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;stay well through all stages of life.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;protect people from serious health risks.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;listen to and&nbsp;work with communities and people with lived experience.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We work in partnership to&nbsp;strengthen the building blocks&nbsp;of health&nbsp;such as good housing and transport.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;support councils, the NHS, and partners to&nbsp;take action to improve&nbsp;health&nbsp;and wellbeing.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;work with our partners to help improve access to healthcare, particularly for vulnerable people.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We&nbsp;focus on prevention and&nbsp;raise&nbsp;awareness about health and wellbeing, for example campaigns and communications on steps to improve&nbsp;our own&nbsp;health.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Our responsibilities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&nbsp;are responsible for&nbsp;a range of local public health activities such as:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>providing health visiting and school nursing service to families&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>supporting NHS health checks for&nbsp;40 to 74 year-olds&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>commissioning drug and alcohol treatment services&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>providing public health support and advice to the NHS&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>commissioning good sexual health services<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>improving oral health and preventing tooth decay<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>developing ways to help reduce childhood obesity, including the national child measurement programme&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>increasing levels of physical activity in communities through <a href=\"https:\/\/activedevon.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Active&nbsp;Devon<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>addressing health inequalities&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are&nbsp;active members&nbsp;of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/public-health\/health-and-wellbeing-board\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"144\">Devon Health and Wellbeing Board<\/a> which is made up of key leaders from health, public&nbsp;health&nbsp;and care systems,&nbsp;who&nbsp;work together to improve health&nbsp;and wellbeing&nbsp;in Devon.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/public-health\/health-and-wellbeing-board\/jhws\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"248\">The&nbsp;Joint&nbsp;Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2026-2035&nbsp;can be found here<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;we will continue to support&nbsp;the delivery of&nbsp;its priorities &#8211; which include:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>mental health and wellbeing&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>start well, live well&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>housing&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>rural areas and access to services&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our Public Health Team works to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of everyone living in Devon. Many&nbsp;things affect our health, not just how we use healthcare \u2013 but the&nbsp;conditions&nbsp;into which we are born, the&nbsp;places we live in, our income,&nbsp;our&nbsp;homes&nbsp;and&nbsp;our&nbsp;jobs.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; What&nbsp;we do We use data,&nbsp;research&nbsp;and local insight to understand the needs of our communities. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":24,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-140","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 13:29:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/140\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/public-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}