Pennsylvania Statutes Title 16 P.S. Counties § 12002. Legislative findings and purposes

(a) The protection and promotion of the health of the people in the furtherance of human well-being, industrial and agricultural productivity and the national security is one of the highest duties of the Commonwealth.

(b) This cardinal duty can be performed only when adequate local public health services are available to all the people of the Commonwealth, when these services are maintained at a high level of professional and technical performance, and when they are administered according to units of population sufficiently large to enable full time modern health services to be provided on the most economical basis by local communities working in partnership with the Commonwealth.

(c) These aims can best be achieved by empowering counties to establish county departments of health, and by authorizing State grants to county departments of health and to certain municipalities to enable them to reach or maintain a high level of performance of health services.