Health is a Community Affair

The formation of the National Commission on Community Health Services in September 1962 was a practical response to the demands of health professionals and other civic-minded individuals toward achieving a concerted effort that could cope effectively with new and changing hazards to health, reduce the waste of health service resources, and prepare for the health service demands of the future. The sponsors gave the Commission complete freedom to conduct the necessary studies, develop its recommendations, and report to the American people. This final report of the National Commission on Community Health Services is based, therefore, on the findings and recommendations of these projects, and draws upon professional opinion rather than upon analysis of new data. The Commission reserved the prerogative of developing its own report, but it has borrowed substantially from reports of the task forces and the community studies in preparing that report. The Commission report is a report for use. It is designed for use by the people in communities of all sizes who work, both professionally and as volunteers, for more effective health services -- housewives, physicians, lawyers, engineers, businessmen, educators, bankers, ministers -- representing all the various professions, interests, and responsibilities involved in community health enterprise. Basically, the report is a set of recommendations developed by the kind of people who will use them. The recommendations support 14 major positions. Each position represents a critical area of concern upon which future health practices must be planned. Some represent advanced concepts in health services; others, well-known concepts which the Commission feels should be more widely accepted. The final chapter of this book comprises the Commission's positions and recommendations. The report does not attempt to be inclusive. It presents neither pattern nor prototype. It was the firm policy of the Commission that its report would raise the critical issues, discuss them, and take unequivocal positions, but would not specify in detail the methods of implementation. This will be the responsibility of the communities. Communities will develop their individual systems of services, using the recommendations of the report as principles and guides or as statements of policy. The Commission urges only that they be put to use. - Preface. Health is essentially a community affair. This premise has been basic to the activities of the National Commission on Community Health Services. The National Commission, which will bring its operations to a conclusion in August 1966, is a private, nonprofit study group established in 1962 by the National Health Council and the American Public Health Association, yet independent of both. It is financed approximately equally from private and public funds. Thirty-two commissioners, representing a cross-section from medicine, business, labor, voluntary groups, government, and other fields, under the chairmanship of Marion B. Folsom, direct its activities. This month, the final report of the Commission was released. The National Commission was formed because of concerns of those in the field of community health regarding the availability and the accessibility of community health services both today and for the future. - Dean W. Roberts.