The Next Forty Years in Public Health

Abstract

Abstract In this article an attempt is made to assess the major health problems of the second half of the twentieth century in developed countries, the methods appropriate to these problems, and the pattern of medical services necessary to deal with them. From an examination of mortality and morbidity trends it is suggested that the most important problems are likely to be the mortality, malformation and disability established before birth, mental illness, and the disease and disability associated with ageing. Reasons are given for doubting whether control of breeding, the method which has contributed greatly to the improvement of plants and other animals, can be expected to be effective in the case of man, and hence reliance must continue to be placed on modifications of the environment to which achievement hitherto has been entirely due. The methods likely to be significant are: an extension of measures already in use for control ofthe physical environment; discovery and application of knowledge concern...