[Preventive health practices. What can be learned from municipal accounts?].

To what extent does health promotion work vary among the municipalities, and how can the variation be explained? We answer these questions by analyzing municipality accounts for 1991 and 1992. According to these accounts, there is a large difference in municipalities' involvement. We seek to explain this variation through different hypotheses, and show that part of the variation can be explained by the size of the local revenues. Demographic needs and organizational aspects seem to have lesser effect. On the other hand, there is a clear connection between earmarked grants from central government and the municipality's involvement in health promotion. This analysis is unable to determine, however, whether earmarked grants are a cause of municipal involvement, or an effect of local activity.