ENGLISH FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PURPOSES: DEFINITION, CLASSIFICATION, VOCABULARY AND LANGUAGE SKILLS

Abstract

Public health students and professionals increasingly need English to read research, analyse and present data, write reports and proposals, and work with international partners. Yet English courses in public health programmes are often modelled on general English or on clinical English for medicine and nursing, which do not reflect the population-based, data-driven and interdisciplinary nature of the field. This conceptual literature review examines English for Public Health Purposes (EPHP) as a branch of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Drawing on foundational ESP literature, research on specialised vocabulary and academic genres, public health sources and recent needs analyses in health-related ESP, the review addresses four questions: how EPHP can be defined, where it is located in established ESP classifications, what vocabulary characterises it, and which language skills it requires. The review defines EPHP through five elements: its learners, purposes, content, language and audiences. It locates EPHP mainly within English for Science and Technology and English for Medical Purposes, with academic and occupational forms and a secondary link to the social sciences. Its vocabulary combines high-frequency, academic, technical and sub-technical words across sub-disciplines such as epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health and health promotion, together with word-formation patterns, acronyms, data language and plain-language equivalents. All four skills are required, connected by two cross-cutting competences: working with data and adapting language to different audiences. The review concludes that EPHP syllabuses should include the language of data, social research, health communication and policy, and calls for empirical needs analyses of public health learners in Indonesia.