Published eLetters
If you would like to comment on this article, click on Submit a Response to This article, below. We welcome your input.
Jump to comment:
- Page navigation anchor for RE: Shared Language for Shared Work in Population HealthRE: Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health
Thank you to the authors of this work for bringing to light important bridges to facilitate the integration between primary care and population health. The authors identified the important distinction between population health and community health, where community health is the population health goals for specific communities defined by “common interests, problems, fate, or those who live in a common environment, and with whom several primary care clinicians interact over time.” As a medical student, terms such as these often become interchangeable, and it is important, especially moving forward, to be able to differentiate them. By creating clearer definitions for commonly used terms in health care, the training of new physicians will also become more efficient. In this way, newly trained clinicians and public health professionals will not need to relearn local vocabulary with each transition in training.
While reading this informative work, I became curious as to whether there are similar efforts to expand the universal lexicon globally? There are many implications and challenges of expanding health care and aid beyond borders, one of which being language barriers. Do you see the potential for similar universally accepted definitions for common health care terms globally, such as the WHO’s definition of “health?” It will be important for the field of global health to be able to incorporate and translate this publication’s findings to primary care in global setting...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for RE: Shared Language for Shared Work in Population HealthRE: Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health
Thank you to the authors of “Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health”1 for their efforts to break down barriers to collaboration between primary care and public health. I would like to add to the conversation by suggesting that the role and definition of policy be pulled into the foreground of the framework provided.
In selecting which terms to define, the authors call attention to the “goals”, “realities”, and “ways to get the job done” they have determined to be of fundamental importance for those involved in collaborations for population health. In this framework, the role of policy is presented as one aspect of the social determinants of health, and as a product of public health activities. Naming policy explicitly as a “general way to get the job done”, would place a more substantial emphasis on what is a powerful mechanism to improve (or erode) the health of populations and communities. This adjustment to the framework would open the door for participation from other sectors that profoundly influence population and community health (education, transportation, justice system, etc.). It would also serve to underscore that primary care physicians have a responsibility to advocate for their patients and the policies that support the “Vital Conditions for Well-Being.”2-4
A shared definition of the term “policy” may also be helpful. The CDC defines policy as “a law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary practice...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for Author thanks and reply to Lloyd Michener's helpful letterAuthor thanks and reply to Lloyd Michener's helpful letter
Dr. Michener,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful letter of 9/15/21 regarding our paper “Shared Language for Shared Work…”. I thought of you and the Practical Playbook many times as we came up with those definitions and illustration.I am very pleased that you commended and thanked us for the paper and the need to move from common confusions to shared meanings. We have hoped the paper would help put that more in the foreground for conversation and evolution. Your letter helps fulfil that hope with its thoughtful observations and suggestions which are now the first entries on suggestions I am pooling for our authors to evolve that diagram. Thank you for those and the excellent references.
You will likely appreciate a balance our authors tried to strike in the definitions offered: A) to reflect today’s realities and common usage among professionals reading this article (what they actually encounter and talk about now when they show up); and B) depicting (proposing really) definitions and relationships among terms that are forward-looking to a better future even if not yet routinely encountered, AND that incorporate ordinary language used by people in communities.
Our authors differed, but finally decided to show definitions and meanings that most persons working in the crucibles of population health would routinely encounter every day—common terms in general widespread use. Because that’s the shared language and workspace they currently navigat...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for A Few Additions to an Excellent Article on Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health.A Few Additions to an Excellent Article on Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health.
To the Editors:
I would like to commend and thank the authors of “Shared Language for Shared Work in Population Health” (1) for their thoughtful suggestions for a common language for collaborations to improve population health – a topic of common confusion, within Family Medicine and without. They offer some hope for improving communication around this vital topic. As family physicians engage in this larger discussion, there are similar activities and shifts in framing and language that may be worth noting.
Show More
One is around the language of “social determinants.” While widespread in health care and public health, that language can resonate less well with partners. “Vital Conditions for Health” is an alternative, positive framing that has been suggested (2) especially in work with community organizations and businesses. The Surgeon General’s Report on Community Health and Economic Prosperity (3) is a good example of this usage.
A second is the use of “Public Health.” The usage here reflects the common meaning of governmental public health. But others cast a wider net. CDC Foundation, example, states: “Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities” [emphasis added] (4), while the National Association of County and City Health Officials describes Public Health systems as “all public, private, and voluntary entities that contribute to the delivery of essential public health services with a jurisdiction”...Competing Interests: None declared.