Legal aspects of prevention in Norway

Prevention in Norway and in Europe more generally, is a multidisciplinary collaboration between many professions, organized largely in municipalities, villages, and counties. This paper addresses three questions: What relevant legislation on prevention currently exists? What are the perspectives of ongoing activities and their intentions? What are the strategic issues? Since 1984, Norway's primary health care system has been based on the Local Authority Health Care Act. In 1995, the Communicable Disease Control Act replaced the chapter on communicable diseases in the old Public Health Act of 1860. The new act emphasizes communicable disease control as more of a right rather than a duty for both the individual and the population. In Europe, future public health policy, practice, and research will need to focus not only causes of disease and injuries, but also on factors promoting health.