Public health has a long history of working successfully with the business sector. Initial efforts focused on providing basic health services through a partnership with the Rotary Club and expanded to fighting infectious diseases with a variety of private-sector partners. In the last 50 years, however, as public health has become increasingly isolated from the private sector, achieving public health objectives has been more difficult. Two examples of a new type of business relationship are highlighted from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health: 1) the tripartite agreements that called for the unions, company leaders, and CDC staff to work together to improve worker safety and 2) the National Occupational Research Agenda.

Urgent threats such as those caused by terrorists tend to unite the public health community with all sectors, including the business sector. When these threats arise, the public and private sectors provide an initial influx of resources. These resources tend to be cyclical, but they can be sustained by forming relationships that address not only the urgent health threats such as bioterrorism, but also chronic diseases.

Public health needs to develop new partnership models that take into account modern health problems. By building credibility with business and community leaders on issues such as preparedness, public health can gain support for its chronic disease efforts. Initiatives that are considered desirable by communities, such as those to build recreational facilities, can help limit obesity. Public health leaders need to find this common ground.

Underlying the discussion of partnerships and the debates over definitions, motives, and processes are basic questions of ethics. Which partnerships should be considered? How can their accountability be assured? To help public health professionals develop productive and ethical public-private partnerships, Matthews highlights 3 strategies that should serve as the cornerstone for partnership development.

The economic downturn will increase the demands on public health. The public health community needs to prepare for the likely budget cuts, report the impact of these cuts on the public's health, and expand the range of stakeholders that influence the body politic. The Department of Agriculture is highlighted as an agency that has met these challenges by creating relationships with the private sector.

Gene W. Matthews is a senior fellow at the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, the outreach and service unit of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. He also holds faculty appointments at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health and the Georgia State University College of Law. Since 1999, Mr Matthews has provided leadership in the development of CDC’s internal Public Health Law Program, an effort to reach out to the legal community and to public health practitioners. In June 2004, Mr Matthews received the Distinguished Career Award of the Public Health Law Association “… in recognition of a career devoted to using law to improve the public’s health.” Mr Matthews is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law and is a member of the North Carolina Bar.