A SURVEY OF STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT COMPLIANCE WITH THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INSTITUTE-OF-MEDICINE REPORT, THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC-HEALTH

We repeated a survey of state health agencies (SHAs) designed to ascer tain the extent that the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine' s report, The Future of Public Health, have been implemented. This sur vey was originally done in 1989 and we repeated the same survey in 199 6. While there has been progress in some of the recommendations, such as a separate department of health, agreed-upon public health duties, outreach, infrastructure, and scope of responsibilities, there continu e to be problems with the implementation of some of the recommendation s. For example, the proportion of agencies reporting that the core pub lic health function of policy development is extant has actually decli ned since 1989. There continue to be problems with developing linkages of public health with environmental health and mental health, with st rengthening the public health infrastructure, and with expansion of th e scope of public health responsibilities. We encourage the continued monitoring of the implementation of the IOM recommendations.