Public Health Officer Duties & Responsibilities
The role and function of a Public Health Officer includes the following duties and responsibilities:
- Design or use surveillance tools, such as screening, lab reports, and vital records, to identify health risks.
- Develop or implement interventions to address behavioral causes of diseases.
- Direct or manage prevention programs in specialty areas such as aerospace, occupational, infectious disease, and environmental medicine.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed risk reduction measures or other interventions.
- Identify groups at risk for specific preventable diseases or injuries.
- Perform epidemiological investigations of acute and chronic diseases.
- Coordinate or integrate the resources of health care institutions, social service agencies, public safety workers, or other organizations to improve the community health.
- Deliver presentations to lay or professional audiences.
- Prepare preventive health reports including problem descriptions, analyses, alternative solutions, and recommendations
- Supervise or coordinate the work of physicians, nurses, statisticians, or other professional staff members.
- Teach or train medical staff regarding preventive medicine issues.
- Provide information about potential health hazards and possible interventions to the media, the public, other health care professionals, or local, state, and federal health authorities.
- Design, implement, or evaluate health service delivery systems to improve the health of targeted populations.
- Direct public health education programs dealing with topics such as preventable diseases, injuries, nutrition, food service sanitation, water supply safety, sewage and waste disposal, insect control, and immunizations.
- Document or review comprehensive patients’ histories with an emphasis on occupation or environmental risks.
Note that this is not an exhaustive list of Public Health Officer duties and responsibilities. Job functions for specific Public Health Officer roles may vary, depending on the industry and type of employer.