| Course | HLTH 4073 Fundamentals of Public Health |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Public health scope and core functions analysis |
| Length | 1,160 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | Public Health and Health Leadership Micro-Credential |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for HLTH 4073 Module 1
Nobody Regulates the Well: The Scope and Core Functions of Public Health in a Rural County's Private Drinking Water Program
Student Name
American College of Education
HLTH4073: Fundamentals of Public Health
Module 1 Assignment
Instructor Name
October 5, 2026
What Public Health Is
More than a century ago, Winslow (1920) described public health as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts of the community, including sanitation, the control of infections, health education and the social machinery to ensure everyone a standard of living adequate to maintain health. The definition still marks the two features that separate public health from medical care. Its patient is a population rather than an individual, and its main tools are prevention and collective action rather than treatment.
This paper applies that definition, and the functions that grew from it, to one program in a composite rural county of about 64,000 people in the Midwest. Roughly 58% of the county's households draw their drinking water from private wells. The county health department runs a small private well program with two environmental health specialists. Examining what that program does, and what it leaves undone, shows the scope and core functions of public health at work.
Why Private Wells Are a Public Health Problem
Public water systems are tested and treated under federal law. Private wells are not. By the federal regulator's own account, about 15% of Americans, over 43 million people, drink from private wells, the Safe Drinking Water Act does not govern that water, most states do not either, and responsibility for its safety rests with each owner (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2026).
In an agricultural county, that responsibility carries real risk. Nitrate from fertilizer and animal waste can seep into shallow wells, and water with high nitrate is dangerous for infants when it is used to mix formula. Some bedrock releases naturally occurring arsenic, which raises long-term cancer risk. Neither contaminant can be seen, smelled or tasted. The county's records show why the problem belongs to public health rather than to individual owners alone: of about 1,140 well samples tested through the department over the past three years, 11% exceeded the federal drinking water limit for nitrate and 6% exceeded the limit for arsenic, yet fewer than one in five well-owning households had tested at all in that period.
The Three Core Functions
A landmark 1988 report gave health agencies three jobs (Institute of Medicine, 1988). The first, assessment, is knowing the community's health through steady collection and analysis of data and sharing what is learned. The second, policy development, is turning that knowledge into rules and plans that protect the whole population. The third, assurance, is seeing to it that needed services actually reach people, delivered by the agency, by partners, or by requirement.
The well program shows all three. Its assessment work is the testing data just described, mapped by township so the department can see where nitrate and arsenic cluster. Its policy development work is a proposal now before the county board to require a water test whenever a property with a private well is sold and whenever a new well is drilled. Its assurance work includes subsidized test kits, a list of state-certified laboratories, and a follow-up call to every household whose result exceeds a limit, with priority to homes where an infant or a pregnant woman lives. The program's weakest function is assurance: a family told its water is unsafe still has to find and pay for the fix.
The Ten Essential Public Health Services
Those three jobs were later broken into ten essential public health services, and a 2020 update rewrote them around equity, which now sits at the middle of the framework's diagram. Castrucci (2021) argued that the revised ten services give the field a common framework for explaining what public health does, something the field has long lacked when communicating with policymakers and the public. The services range from assessing and monitoring population health and investigating hazards, through communicating, building partnerships, creating policies and using legal and regulatory tools, to assuring equitable access to services, building the workforce, improving through evaluation and research, and maintaining organizational infrastructure.
Mapped against the well program, several services are well covered: monitoring through test data, investigating clusters of high results, and communicating risks through mailings to well owners in high-nitrate townships. Others are thin. The program has no partnership with farm organizations whose members manage the fertilizer that reaches wells, no evaluation of whether its mailings change testing rates, and no way to assure treatment for households that cannot afford a filtration system.
Who the Program Misses
The testing data also carry an equity problem. Households that test are disproportionately owners with higher incomes who live in newer homes, because the people most likely to request a kit are those who already know about the risk and can pay to fix it. Renters are the clearest gap. A tenant cannot drill a new well or install a treatment system without the landlord's consent and usually has no way to require testing. In this county, many farmworker families rent older farmhouses on shallow wells near fields, and some speak Spanish as their first language, while the program's mailings go only to property owners and only in English. The department therefore knows least about the water of the residents who may face the highest exposure. A public health program is judged by whether it protects the whole population, and by that standard the well program's reach needs to be measured by who is renting, not only by how many samples come back.
Public Health Compared With Medical Care
The difference in scope becomes clear when the same problem reaches a clinic. A pediatrician who sees an infant with unexplained bluish skin may test for methemoglobinemia and treat one child. The health department's job is to find every home where that risk exists before any child becomes ill, to change the rules that allow it to go undetected, and to work with farmers, well drillers, realtors and clinics to reduce it. Medical care and public health need each other: clinicians report cases and advise families, and public health supplies the data and the prevention. But their units of concern differ, one patient against 64,000 residents.
Strengthening the Program
Three changes would bring the program closer to the full scope of public health. First, the department should seek a small state grant to provide free testing for any household with an infant, and partner with the county's WIC office and pediatric clinics to offer kits at visits, which strengthens assessment and reaches the most vulnerable. Second, it should support the property-sale testing ordinance with a public meeting that includes realtors and farm groups, an example of policy development built on partnership. Third, it should create a treatment assistance fund, even a modest one, and track how many households with unsafe results install treatment within six months. That last measure would tell the department whether its assurance function actually protects anyone, which is the question the core functions exist to answer.
References
Castrucci, B. C. (2021). The "10 Essential Public Health Services" is the common framework needed to communicate about public health. American Journal of Public Health, 111(4), 598-599. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306189
Institute of Medicine. (1988). The future of public health. National Academy Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/1091
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2026, August 25). Private drinking water wells. https://www.epa.gov/privatewells
Winslow, C. E. A. (1920). The untilled fields of public health. Science, 51(1306), 23-33. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.51.1306.23
The HLTH 4073 Module 1 assignment instructions
HLTH 4073 Module 1 usually asks you to explain what public health is and how it works. Most prompts ask for a definition of public health and how it differs from medical care, an explanation of the three core functions and the ten essential public health services, and an application of those ideas to a real program, agency or health problem. Some versions ask you to interview someone at a local health department or review its website; others provide a case. Graders expect definitions taken from recognized sources and examples specific enough to show the functions in action. Pick a program you can describe in detail, and review the Canvas prompt for whether the 2020 version of the essential services is required.
How this HLTH 4073 Module 1 example is built
The sample begins with a classic definition of public health and draws out its two defining features, a population focus and prevention through organized action. It then explains why private wells are a public health problem, using the federal agency's own statement of the regulatory gap and local testing data. Each of the three core functions is defined from its source and shown in a specific activity of the program. The ten essential services, in their 2020 form, serve as a checklist that reveals which services the program covers and which it neglects. A contrast with a pediatrician's response clarifies the difference in scope, and three recommendations close the gaps.
Reading the HLTH 4073 Module 1 rubric
Rubrics for this assignment tend to reward accurate definitions, correct explanation of the core functions and essential services, and meaningful application. The definitions criterion checks for sources rather than general statements. Application usually carries the most weight: graders look for specific activities matched to each function, not a restatement of the framework. Higher scores go to papers that evaluate the program, identifying which functions or services are weak, rather than only describing it. A criterion on the difference between public health and medical care appears in many sections. Recommendations, credible sources and APA 7 formatting complete the score.
Common HLTH 4073 Module 1 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Introductory public health papers often list the three core functions and the ten services word for word and never show them working. Another frequent weak spot is choosing a topic too broad to apply, such as obesity in America, when a single program in one county would let you give real examples. Students also blur public health and medical care, describing treatment as if it were prevention. Use the 2020 wording of the essential services unless told otherwise. Say which function your example handles worst. If your example is a vaccination clinic, a restaurant inspection program or a tobacco policy instead, describe the program and share the assignment wording, and we will draft a Module 1 paper around it.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
More HLTH 4073 and Public Health and Health Leadership Micro-Credential sample papers
- HLTH 4073 Module 2: Social Determinants Analysis
- HLTH 4073 Module 3: Intervention and Prevention Level
- HLTH 4073 Module 4: Access to Care Analysis
- HLTH 4073 Module 5: Professional Duty and Quality
HLTH 4073 Module 1 questions, answered
What does HLTH4073 Module 1 usually ask for?
HLTH4073 typically opens by asking you to define public health, explain its core functions and essential services, and apply them to a real program or problem in a community. Your classroom's instructions decide the example.
What are the three core functions of public health?
Assessment, policy development and assurance, as described by the Institute of Medicine in 1988: monitoring community health, building policies from that information, and making sure needed services are provided.
What changed in the 2020 ten essential public health services?
The framework was revised to put equity at its center and to update the wording of the services, which range from assessment and investigation to policy, access, workforce, evaluation and infrastructure.
Where can I find a free HLTH 4073 Module 1 sample paper?
This page posts, in full, the Module 1 paper applying the definition, core functions and ten essential services of public health to a rural county's private well water program, with margin notes.
How is public health different from medical care?
Medical care treats individual patients; public health works to prevent disease across whole populations through surveillance, policy, education and organized community action.