"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

For many children, schools are the main or only providers of mental health services. In this visionary and comprehensive book, two nationally known experts describe a new approach to school-based mental health—one that better serves students, maximizes resources, and promotes academic performance. The authors describe how educators can effectively coordinate internal and external resources to support a healthy school environment and help at-risk students overcome barriers to learning. School leaders, psychologists, counselors, and policy makers will find essential guidance, including: • An overview of the history and current state of school mental health programs, discussing major issues confronting the field • Strategies for effective school-based initiatives, including addressing behavior issues, introducing classroom-based activities, and coordinating with community resources • A call to action for higher-quality mental health programming across public schools—including how collaboration, research, and advocacy can make a difference Gain the knowledge you need to develop or improve your school's mental health program to better serve both the academic and mental health needs of your students!

What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).

Ensuring that members of society are healthy and reaching their full potential requires the prevention of disease and injury; the promotion of health and well-being; the assurance of conditions in which people can be healthy; and the provision of timely, effective, and coordinated health care. Achieving substantial and lasting improvements in population health will require a concerted effort from all these entities, aligned with a common goal. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examine the integration of primary care and public health. Primary Care and Public Health identifies the best examples of effective public health and primary care integration and the factors that promote and sustain these efforts, examines ways by which HRSA and CDC can use provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to promote the integration of primary care and public health, and discusses how HRSA-supported primary care systems and state and local public health departments can effectively integrate and coordinate to improve efforts directed at disease prevention. This report is essential for all health care centers and providers, state and local policy makers, educators, government agencies, and the public for learning how to integrate and improve population health.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.