Communal health policy as a research sphere of public health and social sciences

The community plays a central role in new public health concepts, However, local health policy has not achieved a central role in cities and counties, Therefore it seems to be both reasonable and necessary for social sciences to analyse the health options in local politics and to identify aspects for improvement. The implementation of health priorities and their realisation at the local level, the latter with regard to supporting (positive) and hampering (negative) factors, and the development of strategies to implement health programmes are suggested as main research topics. Starting from the assumption that complex organisational processes in communities need organisational support, the role of the public health service as coordinating and initialising factor for the alteration of community health programmes should be investigated more thoroughly. The public health service as a part of the administration in municipalities is also involved in the endeavour to modernize administration. A main area for research will be how far the knowledge about participation of citizens and new management theories support health as a task of local politics.