[Do both the public health service and public health have a future despite developing in different directions?].

In the United Kingdom and the United States the public health services have always been considered as being an integral part of public health. The mission, tasks and objectives are the same. In Germany pub-lic health research and public health initiatives on behalf of the universities started in the 1990s. Before that terms and disciplines such as "hygiene" and "social medicine" prevailed. The public health service -- related to these disciplines -- had also been established previously. At the start of the debate on public health issues, however, the pub-lic health service did not play an important role. It was criticized for its conventional organization and its lack of population-based strategies. This article describes the conceptual development of both public health and the public health service over the last 15 ye-ars and the importance of public health politics in achieving a joint strategy aimed at im-proving the health of the population including different population groups.