Can public health performance standards improve the quality of public health practice?

Recent developments suggest that a national public health performance standards program could succeed in improving the quality of public health practice. Public health standards also may be useful for enhancing accountability and strengthening the science base of public health practice. For national public health performance standards to have a substantial influence on the quality of public health practice, several important issues must be addressed. These include agreement as to the ultimate purpose and appropriate unit of measurement, delineation of the specific qualities to be measured, and expansion of strategies to promote widespread use of public health practice standards.