“The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century” offers many ideas to coordinate federal, state and local public health systems and to improve their staffing, funding and information infrastructure. But the report authors conclude that “creating the conditions for people to be healthy should also be a shared social goal.”

For instance, the report recommends encouraging small businesses to expand their employee health care plans and to become involved in community prevention and healthy environment initiatives. It recognizes the media as an important conduit for health prevention messages and suggests that community agencies take a more prominent role in designing programs specific to the populations that they serve.

Public health would benefit from extra money spent researching the social and environmental determinants of health, the report notes. The study’s authors also lamented the general lack of evidence-based research in public health, saying that “there is no agenda or support for this type of research, despite the critical need for such data to promote and protect the nation’s health.”

To read the full report, go to here.