Table 1.

National Association of Local Public Health Services

‘GGDGHOR Nederland’ is the national Association of Local Public Health Services (‘GGD’en’) and GHOR(Regional Medical Emergency Preparedness and Planning) offices in the Netherlands. By law, all Dutch municipalities have the obligation to protect, control and promote the health of their inhabitants. Each municipality is associated with a local public health service to carry out these tasks. There are about 400 municipalities in the Netherlands and they are served by 26 local public health services. This means that one local public health service is often jointly directed by several municipalities. Local public health services are responsible for preventive health care. All local public health services have a number of uniform tasks, as specified in the law: the Public Health Act. Examples of those tasks are Youth health, Infectious disease control, Health promotion and Environmental public health. Environmental public health focuses on the interactions with and effects of the environment on health, e.g. indoor and outdoor pollution and chemical safety.