[Establishment of environmental medicine ambulatory/counseling facilities in public health offices--a promising concept?].

The establishment of medical environmental centres at public health offices is hardly questioned any longer even though it means a crucial shift regarding the points of emphasis in human ecology in general as well as the extension of the fields of activity in public health services. It is doubtful whether the individual-orientated approach of environmental medicine can meet the complexity of medical problems due to environmental factors or which rating preventive medicine can have in this context. Environmental medicine could well not only overtax the personnel resources of public health offices, as previous experience shows, but also change the fields of activity of public health services qualitatively. At present the lack of knowledge and experience in environmental medicine enables only research-orientated institutions to perform appropriate work in this field.