The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their own. Health departments perform food licensing and food inspection (the person who performs this job is often called a Health Inspector), vaccination programs, free STD and HIV tests, and other medical assistance. Health departments also compile statistics about health issues of their area. In 1986, several of the worlds' national health departments met to establish an international guideline by which health departments operate. The meeting was in Ottawa, Canada, and hence the guidelines established are known as the Ottawa Charter. The Ottawa Charter was designed to ‘achieve Health for All’.

"Health department" can also refer to a university health department.

Health departments around the world[link]

See also: Local Health Department

See also: Ministries of Health around the world

National[link]

Most executive governments in the world are divided into departments or ministries. In most such cases, there is a department responsible for health. Some examples:

• Afghanistan - Afghan Ministry of Public Health
• Australia - Department of Health and Ageing
• Canada - Health Canada
• People's Republic of China
  • Mainland China - Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China
  • Hong Kong - Food and Health Bureau and Department of Health
  • Macau - Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture (Macau)
• Ireland - Department of Health
• New Zealand - Ministry of Health, previously the Department of Health
• Philippines - Department of Health
• Singapore - Ministry of Health
• South Africa South African Department of Health
• South Korea the National Health Insurance Corporation
• South Sudan Ministry of Health
• United Kingdom: Department of Health
  • Northern Ireland - Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
  • Scotland - Scottish Government Health Department
  • Wales - Department of Health and Social Services^[1]
• Republic of China (Taiwan) - Department of Health
• United States - United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Sub-national[link]

All U.S. states have a state health department. Counties, cities, metropolitan areas, districts, and tribes may also have a department of health. Local health departments protect and promote health and well-being for all people in their communities by coordinating programs and services that make it easier for people to be healthy and safe from public health emergencies. The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services is an example of a local health department.

Sub-national entities in other countries, such as the states of Australia, also have their own health departments.

• United States
  • Alabama - Alabama Department of Public Health
  • California - California Department of Public Health
  • Florida - Florida Department of Health
  • Hawaii - Hawaii Department of Health
  • Massachusetts - Massachusetts Department of Public Health
  • Michigan - Michigan Department of Community Health
  • New Jersey - New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services
  • New York - New York State Department of Health
  • North Carolina - North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
  • Oklahoma - Oklahoma State Department of Health
  • Oregon - Oregon Department of Human Services
  • Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania Department of Health
  • South Carolina - South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control
  • Texas - Texas Department of State Health Services

See Also: state health department; See Also: local health department

Health Department Stories[link]

This section requires expansion.

• [1] Miami-Dade County Health Department, Healthy Stories 2007

References[link]

External links[link]

• Local Health Departments in the USA
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)

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Alan Henry Finger (6 December 1909 – 24 January 1985) was an Australian medical practitioner and communist.

He was born in Dandenong, Victoria, to farmer Philip Charles Henry Finger and Minnie, née Freeman. He attended Maryborough and Melbourne High schools and then the University of Melbourne, from which he graduated in 1934. He joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1933. Finger married Joan Mary Hardiman, a journalist active in the Communist Party, on 8 December 1934.^[1]

Finger was resident medical officer at Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1935, but moved to South Australia in 1936 to become outpatients' registrar at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He soon transferred to the Metropolitan Infectious Diseases Hospital in Northfield, later being promoted superintendent. He remained at the hospital for eleven years, and in 1941 received a diploma of public health from the University of Sydney.^[1]

Finger and his wife were important in the revival of the South Australian branch of the Communist Party. He contested state and federal elections consistently between 1943 and 1967, but after Nikita Kruschev's 1956 revelations about Stalin's government he focused more on issues such as the peace movement. Finger moved to Broken Hill in 1947, in which year he and his wife divorced. In 1949, after returning to Pennington in Adelaide, he married Jean Isobel Sams, née Marshall, a fellow divorcee, on 12 December. He was a full-time officer with the Department of Public Health from 1969 to 1975 and was recognised for his work on venereal diseases. He retired in 1977 and worked for a community health service in Kalgoorlie. Following Jean's death in 1978, he returned to South Australia and re-married his first wife, who had also been widowed. Finger died at Heidelberg on 24 January 1985 and was cremated.^[1]

References[link]

Paul Edward Farmer (born October 26, 1959) is an American anthropologist and physician. He is currently the Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard University, formerly the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. In May 2009 he was named chairman of Harvard Medical School's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, succeeding his longtime friend and collaborator Jim Kim. On Friday, December 17, 2010, Harvard University's President, Drew Gilpin Faust, and the President and Fellows of Harvard College, named him a Kolokotrones University Professor of Harvard University, the highest honor that the University can bestow on one of its faculty members.^[1]

He currently resides in Kigali, Rwanda. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease. Farmer is one of the founders of Partners In Health (PIH), an international health and social justice organization. His work is the subject of Tracy Kidder's 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World. He is editor-in-chief of Health and Human Rights Journal. In May 2009, Farmer was named to head the U.S. Agency for International Development,^[2] but the nomination was withdrawn.^[3] In August 2009, Paul Farmer was named United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti to assist in improving the economic and social conditions of the Caribbean nation.^[4]

Personal life and education[link]

Farmer was born in North Adams, Massachusetts and raised in Weeki Wachee, Florida. He is a graduate of Hernando High School in Brooksville, Florida and was president of his senior class.^[5] He went on to attend Duke University on a full scholarship, graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in medical anthropology.^[5][6] He then attended Harvard University, earning an MD and a PhD in medical anthropology.^[6]

He and his wife Didi have two daughters, Catherine and Elizabeth, and one son, Sebastian. He currently lives in Kigali, Rwanda with his family.^[7] His younger brother, Jeff Farmer, also known as the nWo Sting, is a well-known athlete, competing on the professional wrestling circuit.^[8]

International work[link]

In 1987, Farmer, along with Ophelia Dahl, Jim Yong Kim, Thomas J. White and Todd McCormack, co-founded Partners In Health. PIH began in Cange in the Central Plateau of Haiti and has developed into a worldwide health organization. The PIH hospital in Haiti provides free treatment to patients. PIH helps patients living in poverty to obtain effective drugs to treat tuberculosis and AIDS.

In addition to his hospital in Haiti, Farmer oversees projects in Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi and Peru. His approach has its basis in ethnographic analysis and real world practicality.^[9]

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder details Farmer's work in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, as well as his efforts to balance clinical and academic responsibilities with having a family of his own. The book narrates the interactions and conflicts Farmer faces as he attempts to secure healthcare for the poor in Haiti.

Paul Farmer sits on the board of the Aristide Foundation for democracy and is a co-founder and Board Member of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.^[10] He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO focused on developing the Health Impact Fund.^{[citation needed]}

Farmer was appointed as the Deputy UN Special Envoy for Haiti, by former US President Bill Clinton, UN Special Envoy for Haiti, on August 11, 2009.^{[citation needed]} In this role, Dr. Farmer will support Clinton and assist in advancing their work on a day-to-day basis.^{[citation needed]}

Farmer is a board member of Kageno Worldwide, Inc., a community development agency that has worked in Kenya and Rwanda.

Awards[link]

Farmer has won honors including:^[11]

• A MacArthur Fellowship, 1993^[12]
• The 9th Annual Heinz Award in the Human Condition, 2003^[13]
• Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize for Partners in Health ($1.5 million), 2005^{[citation needed]}
• International Human Rights Award by Global Exchange.^[14]
• American Medical Association's Dr. Nathan Davis International Award in Medicine^{[citation needed]}
• 2007 Austin College Leadership Award ($100,000), which he donated to Partners in Health.^{[citation needed]}
• 2007 Sandor Teszler Award for Moral Courage and Service to Mankind and an honorary doctorate from Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC.^[15]
• Member of the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies (U.S.).
• 2008 Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award presented to Farmer and Partners in Health.^{[citation needed]}
• 2011, named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers. ^[16]

Publications[link]

• AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, 1993, 2006 edition: ISBN 978-0-520-08343-1
• The Uses of Haiti, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994, 2003, 2005 edition: ISBN 978-1-56751-242-7
• ¿Haití para qué?, Hondarribia, Spain: HIRU Argitaletxea, 1994
• Sida en Haїti: La Victime accusée, Paris: Editions Karthala, 1996
• Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999, revised 2001 edition: ISBN 978-0-520-22913-6
• Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 2005 edition: ISBN 978-0-520-24326-2
• Global Health in Times of Violence, co-edited with Barbara Rylko-Bauer and Linda Whiteford, School for Advanced Research Press, 2009 edition: ISBN 978-1-934691-14-4
• Women, Poverty & AIDS: Sex, Drugs and Structural Violence (Series in Health and Social Justice), with coauthor Margaret Connors, Common Courage Press; Reprint edition (September 1996), ISBN 978-1-56751-074-4
• "Who removed Aristide?", London Review of Books, ISSN 0260-9592, April 15, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.
• Haiti After the Earthquake, Public Affairs July 12, 2011 ISBN 978-1-58648-973-1

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• "Faculty: Paul Farmer, MD, PhD". Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/people/faculty/farmer/. Retrieved 2006-12-16. 
• "About Paul Farmer". Social Medicine & Health Inequalities. Brigham and Women's Hospital. August 2003. http://www.brighamandwomens.org/socialmedicine/aboutfarmer.aspx. Retrieved 2007-07-01. 
• Kidder, Tracy (2003). Mountains Beyond Mountains. New York: Random House Publishing Group. pp. 1–300. ISBN 0-8129-7301-1. http://books.google.com/?id=XifdzgU9ilsC&pg=PP1. Retrieved 2011-03-17. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Paul Farmer

• Partners In Health
• Dr. Paul Farmer Challenges Profit-Driven Medical System While Bringing Healthcare to Poor Communities Worldwide, Democracy Now, May 28, 2008. Interview with Amy Goodman. Transcript, audio and video.
• Video of Building a Community-based Health Care Movement, Dr. Paul Farmer's speech at University of Washington, by UWTV, November 13, 2006
• Video of Paul Farmer and Tracy Kidder presenting the book Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Cambridge Community Television, October 20, 2006
• Video of Reinvigorating the Struggle: A Clinical and Social Justice Perspective on International Health, Dr. Paul Farmer's speech at the University of Virginia, by UVA NewsMakers, (RealPlayer required)
• Audio reading of a book about Farmer's work in Haiti, by NPR
• Audio of Speech by Farmer as part of the 2006 Calvin College January series
• Audio of Speech by Farmer as part of the 2005 Calvin College January series
• Audio of Interview of Farmer rebroadcast by WBUR Boston
• Audio of 10/03/2003 episode of "On Point" which includes an interview of Farmer
• Audio of a talk at MIT where Farmer and Noam Chomsky speak about Haiti and Farmer's book "The Uses of Haiti" – the link is near the bottom of the page.
• Featured in the documentary "Aristide and the Endless Revolution" by Nicolas Rossier
• Video Featured in the documentary Pin of Hope, currently in production^[when?]
• Dr. Paul Farmer on Haiti’s Challenges Following Catastrophic Earthquake – video report by Democracy Now!