Other attempts to formulate measure

Other attempts to formulate measurement have concentrated on assessing the core functions of public health by focusing on key activities that indicate these functions have been achieved. Healthy People 2000 made this shift toward assessment of core function explicit in Objective 8.14,which states that 90 % of the U.S.population should be served by an LHD that is addressing effectively the three core functions of public health (82). Likewise, a similar emphasis continues in Healthy People 2010 by ensuring that health agencies have the infrastructure to provide
effectively the ten essential public health services (83). Several researchers have studied compliance with the objectives of Healthy People 2000 by developing surveys to measure how well LHDs provide the core functions of public health (34,52,53,65,66,70,78,80,81). The results from these studies strongly suggest that the LHDs surveyed were not completely fulfilling the core public health functions. Moreover, they reveal the need for a measurement initiative that examines decision-making processes ( planning ) to evaluate whether the appropriate organizational activities are being performed.