CHILD PUBLIC-HEALTH - A NEW BASIS FOR CHILD HEALTH-WORKERS

To treat and alleviate diseases in children is an important task that demands extensive knowledge, skills and training. It forms the basis o f our understanding of sick children and their needs, and its quality is a measure of the efforts of society to care for its citizens. With the health of children, however, a much broader view must be taken, in cluding other aspects of children's well-being than their diseases and their medical care. To reach the goals set by international organizat ions and national governments for the populations' health, policies ba sed on public health ideas and functions must be vigorously pursued. A lthough these actions are valid for the whole population, there are ma jor reasons why children should be seen as particularly important. Mer ging the broad aspects of health and public health functions with chil dren's special needs creates child public health, which aims to place the health of children and adolescents in its full social, economic an d political context. It is not a new speciality; rather it is a counte rbalance towards the fullness of health. Its activities - in teaching, research and service - should be practical and relevant and include k nowledge and experience from many professions and sciences. With such a broad competence, child public health is fit to take on a wide range of child health issues, be it healthy public policy for children and adolescents, support for vulnerable groups, education and training or creating centres of relevance for research and surveillance of childre n's and adolescents' health.