Future Measures Against the Threats to Community Health
Dr. Samir Salahildin Hamdi
Public Administration Department
Cihan University - Erbil
It has become essential to reveal to the world that the health of our communities is the most important basis for the survival and continuity of human life. This cannot happen suddenly when epidemics and health disasters occur overnight, but rather through a long-term plan for social health education. Certainly a healthy culture comes through a series of phases ranging from awareness and education, at schools and universities in all educational stages and then through creating health awareness campaigns, then through a robust healthcare units and finally a guidance and a plan are created to confront epidemics and health crises.
At this point, the individual or the citizen will have a healthy culture generated through the early stages of life from childhood that can help him/her to act properly and consciously in front of all the public health crises he or she faces. And by creating this kind of a healthy mindset and culture it helps to develop an interdependence, cooperation, social unification and a unified attitude which leads to create a unified community health force to face health disasters and pandemics such as covid-19 “coronavirus”.
For this reason we recommend a cooperation between the ministry of education, ministry of higher education and the ministry of Health to develop a future systematic plan for health education to create health awareness campaigns using health-based plans and strategies. Those plans and strategies should encourage all the students in all their academic stages to obtain a healthy culture through introducing those students to epidemics and diseases, microbes and viruses, healthy food, first aid and symptoms of illness, and others types of infections.
The early health education since childhood helps to create a healthy, educated society as these young students will be the future parents and this culture will be passed on from one generation to another. That’s why building an educated society means considering building a strong country or a nation. Therefore the necessity requires building a future generation, educated, healthy and instilled in this culture. Thus, it is necessary for all institutions, organizations and the government to have a role in the healthy upbringing of society. Starting with education and its curricula in cooperation with health institutions and ending with the role of worship places in guiding society following the saying of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH): “hygiene is part of faith".