[Migration and health: public health services coordinating health related variety].

About 9 % of the German population is of immigrant descent. Correlations between migration and health have recently been focused on by health and social sciences in Germany. Migration due to different motivations itself strongly affects the health status of individuals and subpopulations. Therapeutic institutions on an individual level and public health services in Germany will need further development towards professional intercultural health care. An international workshop on the topic of migration and health in March 2000 illustrated the importance of the public health services and their opportunities in co-ordination of the health related multicultural variety. Migration generally was regarded being an asset to health in the community. Improvement of verbal communication skills and of the medical expert opinion practice towards culturally sensitive health care were pointed out being major objectives for the public health services as were prevention and health care programs for children and for psychosocially endangered persons within the immigrant population.