On April 18, 1872, following several years of planning by “a number of gentlemen” who were coworkers in the studies of “Preventive Medicine and in duties of public sanitary service”, they devised a plan to organise the formation of a public health association. The first conference was held September 12-13, 1872 where the formation of the organisation was unanimously adopted and called the American Public Health Association (APHA). The executive committee was elected September 13, 1872. [1, 2]
As written in their Constitution, their purpose was for “the advancement of sanitary science and the promotion of organizations and measures for the practical application of public hygiene.” Their members were to “be selected with special reference to their acknowledged interest in, or devotion to, sanitary studies and allied sciences, and to the practical applications of the same.”
In 1873 there were 2 epidemics were underway: cholera and yellow fever, and the recognition of Germ Theory of disease “had not yet become quite universal”. This same year they produced their first monthly publication of the Public Health Papers and Reports, which over 200 years has evolved into todays American Journal of Public Health.
From the outset they wrote ” State Medicine is not a chimera, and State interference would not be inconsistent with the most liberal and just government of a free people.” The proposed intervening to introduced “Preventive Medicine“!
The APHA spear-headed and influenced Public Health journals and policies right though to this today.