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• • t <br />Introduction <br />,o <br />Ae Future of Public Health set forth a vision for the public's health and the <br />specific role for the governmental public health agency in that vision, including the <br />mission and substance of public health and an organizational framework. In this <br />perspective, the public's health is a societal priority and goal, to be achieved by <br />governmental public health agencies and other public and private entities in the <br />community. Public health is also a perspective and a profession, both of which <br />focus on improving the health of the public. <br />Specifically, The Future of Public Health stated that the mission of public <br />health agencies is "fulfilling society's interest in assuring conditions in which <br />people can be healthy. Its aim is to generate organized community effort to <br />address the public interest in health by applying scientific and technical knowledge <br />to prevent disease and promote health. The mission of public health is addressed <br />by private organizations and individuals as well as by public agencies. But the <br />governmental public health agency has a unique function: to- see to it that vital <br />elements are in place and that the mission is adequately addressed." The Future of <br />Public Health expressed the basic governmental responsibility for the people's <br />health as assuring a substantive core of activities, assuring adequacy of means and <br />methods, establishing objectives, and providing guarantees in an ideal health <br />system, the substance of basic services will entail adequate personal health care for <br />all members of the community, education of the community-at- large, the control <br />of communicable disease, and the control of environmental hazards -biological, <br />chemical, social, and physical (IOM, 1988). <br />00 <br />