[Public health departments acting as a public authority and partner in developing a sound environment and healthy living conditions].

The general draft "Health for All" for the European region of the World Health Organization (WHO) describes 21 objectives for a new global health policy in the 21(st) century. This policy aims at promoting and protecting public health from the cradle to the grave. The public health services, responsible for the control and co-ordination of the entire system, have their own scope of procedures. Objective 10 - A healthy and safe natural environment - specifies how environment-related health hazards are to be reduced considerably by improving the quality of air and water and minimising waste production, noise pollution and exposure to radiation, and by sustainable protection of the soil as the source of wholesome and plentiful nutrition. The work of the public health service is based on the laws on health care adopted by the German Federal states, the law on protection against infections, Federal laws and decrees clearly related to health as well as the resolutions of the conferences of health ministers. The public health departments, acting as a public authority, should make available the expert medical knowledge and experience of their staff and contribute comprehensively to regional and development planning procedures. In addition, they should focus on health compatibility testing of projects to ensure efficient preventive health protection.Implementing the EC Directive on Environmental Compatibility Inspection should engender a revision of the pertinent German law. The German National Association of NHS Physicians stipulated that health compatibility testing should be included in the text of the law, and public health departments should be involved on principle in the process of health compatibility testing.This should ensure that health-related issues are given more attention in the future when decisions are made on potential locations for urban building projects, industrial production facilities, large-scale animal husbandry projects, shopping centres or wind farms. The legal situation is exemplified in Saxony-Anhalt, where public health departments are involved in health compatibility testing procedures.