The purpose of this essay is to define public health and compare it to personal health, while also discussing the benefits and disadvantages of public health. The following questions will also be answered: What are the benefits of public health assessments? What are the disadvantages, if any? Provide an example of potential conflict within the community that could arise as a result of public health assessments. How can public health advocates and policy makers prevent and/or manage such a conflict? How can public health assessments be used to shape public policies? Additionally, this paper will discuss how the community has been or will be affected by smoking laws in public places. Definition and Comparison According to Schneider (2006) public health is defined as the concern for maintaining the health of a community. Personal health is individualized for each person. Every individual has the free will to make their own choices when it comes to diet, exercise, sexual preferences, smoking, and family and health matters. All of these choices influence personal health outcomes, while studying a group or combined community about any subset or commonality within this group can become an education or public health crisis. “Promoting public health requires the activation of health-enhancing communication behaviors (such as interpersonal support and mutual accountability) in addition to individual behavioral change. To facilitate such communicative behaviors, it is imperative to first build a new discursive environment in which to think and talk about health in a language of interdependence and collective efforts” (Ye, 2014). The use and importance of health assessments are deemed necessary to identify and formulate...... middle of document ......ntability-act/hipaa-violations-enforcement.pageEdberg, M. (2007). Essential elements of health behavior. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Barlett LearningKemm, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/1/79.fullOriola, T. (2009). Ethical and legal analyzes of the policy banning tobacco smoking in enclosed public spaces. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 37(4), 828-840 doi:10.1111/j.1748-720X.2009.00454.xSchneider, M. (2006). Introduction to public health. Jones and Barlett Publishers, LLC. Retrieved from http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763746347/46347_CH01_4849.pdf(nd). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_StatesYe, S. (2014). Rethinking public health: Promoting public engagement through a new discursive environment. American Journal of Public Health, 104(1), e6-e13. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301638