How Sex and Gender Impact Clinical Practice: Chapter 13 - Public health in your practice: Sex and gender considerations in intimate partner violence, access to healthcare, and immunizations

Public health as a discipline pertains to populations rather than specific patients and is focused on issues that are influenced by interpersonal relationships, community, culture, society, and policy. These are elements of the Social Ecological Model of Health, a model that often guides our thinking in public health. Clinicians see patients that come from these populations and whose health issues are influenced by these constructs. This chapter examines three issues that are considered important public health issues as well as common patient problems—intimate partner violence, access to healthcare, and immunization—with a focus on sex and gender based medicine.