About public health

What is public health

Public health works to protect and improve the health of communities and populations. It is about helping people to live healthier, happier, and longer lives. This is done by preventing people from getting ill, promoting healthy lifestyles, reducing environmental hazards, and improving the health system.

Public health is not the same as healthcare which focuses on the health of the individual. Examples of public health work include controlling infections, programmes to diagnose disease as early as possible, programmes to support healthy behaviours, ensuring people have access to nutritious food and safe housing, tackling climate change, and responding to major incidents and disasters.

Initiatives to improve public health may be delivered by governments, charities, community leaders, and businesses.

Do you want to know more about public health? Visit to the Faculty of Public health website.

What is the council’s role in public health?

Local authorities are responsible for the public health of their population. The public health team in Bradford Council works alongside the NHS, other public agencies, voluntary organisations and communities to reduce risks and promote better health for Bradford residents.

Here are some examples of what public health does in Bradford:

• We support people who want to be more active, lose weight, stop smoking or improve their diet
• We commission services in areas like sexual health, alcohol and drugs, health visiting and health checks
• We manage outbreaks of infectious diseases and support the NHS immunisation programmes
• We work alongside community leaders and charities in the most underserved communities to promote public health messages and access to services

We also work with other council areas to reduce the impact of non-medical factors that influence health like air pollution, traffic accidents, or poor housing.

Do you want to understand more about all factors that influence your health? Watch this independent video from 'Let’s learn public health'.

Learning about your health

If you want to know more about specific health conditions or treatments, including tips for self-care or looking after someone, visit the NHS website.

Key documents

• For information on the health needs of Bradford residents: Public Health - Joint Strategic Needs Assessment
• For the health and wellbeing priorities for Bradford Council and partners: Bradford District Plan 2021-2025 (PDF).

Other key documents (being updated now so links to be added later):

• Annual report of the Director of Public Health
• Annual Health Protection Report

Relevant links

• If you need medical care: information about NHS services and what to do in an emergency
• If you have a complaint: guidance and support to give feedback about health and social care services