Characteristics of Public Health Summary Measures Essay

Characteristics of Public Health Summary Measures - Essay Example Additionally, it will indicate how these characteristics contribute to and improve our understanding of diseases burden in the population. One of the characteristics that I believe a public health summary measures should possess is absolute or relative change. This should be in term of health status for a given period of time. For example, if the mortality rate is 10 percent in a given location for a certain month, then in the next month it increases to 12 percent, this indicates an absolute increase infant mortality (Zack, 1993). Measures should be taken to ensure that there is a reduction in relative change in infant mortality which is a useful measure of the public health. This will reduce the cost of living since the fund that would be used to cater for infant mortality will be used in other economic growth activities and increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The second characteristic is validity, which is a measure that indicates the health status of an individual like a report of health indicating as excellent, good, and poor among others means of rating. This means a record for this validity should be kept where it reflects a change in the health status of individuals (Murray, 1994). This characteristic will be of importance since when one visit a health care then his or her status will be known and intensive care will be undertaken depending on the report. The third characteristic is that population should be sensitive to major health changes for example in the case where alcohol and tobacco taxation is increased. This means the reduction in the consumption of alcohol and tobacco in the location, will be a measure to improve the health of individuals by addressing mental health, chronic diseases among others (McKenna and Michaud, 2005).  Ã‚