ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following questions: To what extent might the principles apply to public health and primary care? For example, do the key players recognise the benefits that might accrue from the partnership? Do they have the potential to meet each other’s expectations? Is there a strong and unifying focus to cement their partnership? It examines some of these questions in more depth, by looking at some of the professional history each of the partners brings to the relationship. Health professionals understood ‘public health’ as information about the patterns of disease and standards of treatment and services. The modern public health movement has its origins in the nineteenth century. Industrialisation and the rapid growth of cities were accompanied by high levels of infectious diseases, and the health impact of the physical environment was increasingly recognised and documented. Public health professionals are just as caught up in organisational change as their colleagues in primary care.
