To aid each local health officer in the performance of his duties, particularly on the appearance of contagious diseases.
To hold conferences of local health officers.
To study the causes of excessive death rates.
To promote efficient registration of births and deaths.
To inspect all labor camps and to enforce in them all public health regulations.
To inspect Indian reservations and to enforce all provisions of the sanitary code in them.
To secure the cooperation of medical organizations for the improvement of the public health.
To promote the information of the public in matters pertaining to the public health.
EXAMPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Another type of local health organization and of cooperation between local and state authorities for health protection and promotion has been developed in North Carolina, where 85 per cent of the population is rural. Here the county has been taken as the unit of local organization. Health conditions had been very bad in this state, hookworm disease, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases being prevalent. The state board of health, assisted by the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission (see above, page 320, and references below), began an investigation and an educational campaign among the people, with the result that many of the counties of the state now have an organization for health cooperation unsurpassed, perhaps, in any other state. Each county has a health department, which is controlled jointly by the state board of health and a county board of health. The county board of health consists of the mayor of the county seat, the chairman of the board of county commissioners, the county superintendent of schools, and two physicians of the county elected by the other three members. The work of the health department is directed by a county health officer, who is appointed by the state board of health of which he is also a member. He has a staff of trained assistants.