PUBLIC HEALTH AND MEDICAL CARE PROBLEMS OF THE RESETTLEMENT ADMINISTRATION --Robert Oleson. Officers and Nurses (Meleney and Leathers). . 43 The Prevention of Venereal Disease The Public Health Aspects of the Teaching of June, 1936 VOL. 1 No. 2 THE HEALTH OFFICER "HOMO SUM: HUMANI NIHIL A ME ALIENUM PUTO."--Terence OFFICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH EDUCATION U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE THE INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE Cooperative action, both with State Health authorities and with Federal agencies, has been a basic policy of the United States Public Health Service for many years. The functions of the Interdepartmental Committee on Health and Welfare Activities offer encouragement that more effective coordination in the field of public health may be achieved. Four Departments of the Federal Government--the Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, and Labor Departments -- are directly concerned with the health and welfare of the people. In view of the increasing need for better coordination of Federal health activities, the President created in August, 1935, the Interdepartmental Committee. The Committee was instructed "To assume full responsibility for the appointment of special committees to be composed of physicians and other technically trained persons within the Government service to study and make recommendations concerning specific aspects of the Government's health activities." The Committee further seeks to achieve cooperative interdepartmental agreements. At the 34th Annual Conference of State and Territorial Health Officers with the Surgeon General, Dr. E. L. Bishop, Executive Secretary of the Interdepartmental Committee, Reported that technical subcommittees in the fields of nursing, industrial hygiene, food research and nutrition have been appointed. Two important agreements between the United States Public Health Service and the Department of Labor have already been completed and are in effect. 27 JUNE, 1936 B-1339a The accumulation and interchange of information, and cooperative action (major objectives of the Interdepartmental Committee) are also primary functions of the Office of Public Health Education. The vast mass of source material in Public Health, preventive medicine and allied fields dealing with human welfare awaits analysis and coordination. Much of this material is found in publications of private foundations, social welfare organizations, National, state and municipal health agencies, Hospitals and Government Departments. This office has ready access to much of this valuable material. Although it is impossible actually to collect all such source materials, the Office of Public Health Education proposes to coordinate information as to the sources and their availability, and to make source-information readily available. An opportunity to render a specific cooperative service has already been offered to this office. At the request of Dr. Edward C. Lindeman, Director of Community Organization for leisure of the Works Progress Administration, the Office of Public Health Education prepared a bulletin on the Relationship of Health and Recreation, for the use of W.P.A. recreation leaders. The bulletin outlines a few of the major objectives in the field of health education through recreation; contacts with health and welfare agencies are discussed, and a brief bibliography is included. The bulletin was sent to recreation leaders throughout the country on May 1st, Child Health Day. June, 1936 Vol. 1 No. 2 HEALTH OFFICERS' CONFERENCE of "The responsibilities we collectively must assume are heavy. We We accept them, with the clear knowledge that no cost of effort is too great, no labor too exacting, if it advance in this generation the cause to which we are dedicated." With these words Surgeon General Parran opened the Thirty-fourth Annual Conference State and Territorial Health Officers with the Public Health Service. Some 200 health officers and experts attended the conference in the blue-hung auditorium of the Service building in Washington on April 13th and 14th. Members off the Pan American Sanitary Bureau were guests of the Conference. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Josephine Roche welcomed the delegates and guests in behalf of Secretary Morgenthau. Paying tribute to Dr. Cumming and wishing Dr. Parran well in his new task, Miss Roche said that "the health officers have been meeting for so many years that they have a working agreement making Federal-State cooperation the order of the day. In new fields opened under the Social Security Act, it is particularly important to have one group such as the health group, well acquainted with the fundamental aims and efforts, not only of the objectives in their own field, but in the very important field of Federal-State relationships." Symposia on the Control of Syphilis and Industrial Hygiene occupied the Monday sessions. Title VI of the Social Security Act, embodying the health provisions of the Act, was the topic of considerable discussion Tuesday morning. At noon Tuesday, the Conference adjourned to be received by President Roosevelt. Reports of the special committees appointed by the Surgeon General were ready by the afternoon. Noteworthy was the report of Dr. E. L. Bishop, Executive Secretary of the Interdepartmental Committee on Health and Welfare Activities. Permanent technical subcommittees in three fields have been appointed. In the field of nursing, the committee of experts numbers Dr. Martha Eliot, Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, Miss Naomi Deutsch, Labor's Director of Public Health Nursing, Assistant Surgeon General Waller, and Miss Pearl McIver, Public Health Service Nursing Analyst. Industrial Hygiene Committee is composed of Mr. Verne A. Zimmer, Mrs. Clara M. Beyer, and Dr. R. R. Jones, all of the Division of Labor Standards, and Assistant Surgeons General Thompson and Waller and Dr. Sayers of the Public health Service. The Surgeon General heads. heads the Committce on Food Rescarch and Nutrition, with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Agriculture, Prof. E. V. McCollum (Johns Hopkins), Prof. H. C. Sherman (Columbia), Dr. Harry Steenbock (Wisconsin University), Dr. W. H. Sebrell (National Institute of Health), and Dr. William Weston (South Carolina University) completing the roster of notables. The Interdepartmental Committee in its eight months' existence has completed two important cooperative agreements between the Public Health Service and the Labor Department. Both are now in effect. The first is a formal agreement between the Children's Bureau and the Public Health Service for the for the coordination of nursing activities. The second is a similar agreement on the Industrial Hygiene activities of both departments; the Public Health Service will investigate medical and engineering factors in Industrial Hygiene; the Labor Department will gather and distribute on information working conditions, accidents, wages and kindred subjects. Health Officer Underwood (Mississippi), chairman of the Committee on Records and Reports presented a proposed form for listing of local health program services and items for descriptive purposes, as the basis of a reporting system. The Tabulation Sheet was described as only one element in the system of records and reports now being developed. An amendment, delegating authority to the Committee to act upon modifications proposed by health departments, with the Federal agencies to be reported to, to, was recommended by Godfrey (New York). With this amendment, Dr. Underwood's Committee report was adopted. Dr. |