State and federal public health agencies have the unique responsibility to report disease, test for specific diseases, educate and promote good personal and public health care practices by ensuring the availability of valid, critical information to all citizens and segments of the economy. New technologies have made the task of sharing and reporting critical information for improving health behaviors and practices more possible than ever before. Telemedicine allows specialists to aid primary care providers in reaching children with special health care needs or emergency conditions in rural communities. New threats to health from emerging disease, resistant antibiotic therapies and bioterrorism requires greater attention to building a stronger, more nimble information gathering and dissemination system. County Health Departments provide a wide variety of very important basic health services that affect the safety and health of all Florida residents each day. Most of these services directly impact children and youth including: monitoring of communicable and infectious disease and environmental carcinogens such as lead and mercury poisoning, health education to child care centers, school health services, recruitment and placement of health care practitioners in underserved areas, child protection team medical support, Healthy Start, newborn screening, recruiting dental providers to service populations without dental care, water safety monitoring, local health planning councils and rural health networks, early intervention for infants and toddlers, specialty services for women and newborns at high risk for poor outcomes, immunizations, screening for domestic violence, sexual abstinence programs, KidCare insurance for children with special health care needs, KidCare insurance outreach, WIC (Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program) , sexually transmitted disease prevention, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, and youth tobacco prevention. Public health also has a very difficult but respected role in advocating, regulating, licensure and surveillance. While most medical care is largely provided through individual physicians offices and hospitals, public health strives to organize some form of safety net care and services for those who cannot afford or access primary and preventive health care.

Many illnesses in children and in later adulthood can be averted or lessened through healthy lifestyle practices in pregnancy and childhood. Ensuring families are aware of what preventive health care services children need involves educating families and children themselves on healthy behaviors and working with childcare providers, schools and other partners. Prevention results in less tangible, unseen outcomes than other health care interventions, but the prevention of diseases and disabilities results in enormous savings in human lives and dollars and in quality of life issues.

• Target populations of families and children with cultural and age appropriate messages on health care behaviors and practices known to be effective in preventing or minimizing poor health conditions.



• Utilize the input of consumers in the development of educational products and evaluate impact.



• Ensure that communications are timely, reliable, accurate, and evidenced based.^{(2, p.11-4)}



• Coordinate public health education and public awareness campaigns and products with key partners who are engaged in providing health services. Inform the public at state and local levels in order to leverage scarce dollars and engage the community in health promotion and prevention.