The Bureau of State Services (BSS) was one of three principal operating agencies of the United States Public Health Service (PHS) from 1943 until 1966. The bureau contained the PHS divisions that administered cooperative services to U.S. states through technical and financial assistance, and included significant programs in community health, environmental health, and workforce development.
The Bureau was broken up at the beginning of the Public Health Service reorganizations of 1966–1973. The community health and workforce development divisions were eventually merged respectively into two divisions of the Health Resources and Services Administration, with the exception of the division that became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most of the Bureau's environmental health divisions became the core of the Environmental Protection Agency when it was created in 1971, with the remaining two divisions becoming the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health within CDC, and the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
Formation
The Marine Hospital Service, the predecessor of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), formed its first internal divisions in 1899. By 1943, PHS contained eight administrative divisions, plus the National Cancer Institute, St. Elizabeths Hospital, and Freedmen's Hospital under the direct supervision of the Surgeon General. These divisions often had overlapping scopes, which was seen as administratively unwieldy. Additionally, some of these had been created and specified through several pieces of legislation that were inconsistent in their scope, while some had been created internally by PHS or delegated from its parent agency, the Federal Security Agency.
A 1943 law () collected PHS's divisions into three operating agencies. These were the National Institute of Health for laboratory research, the Bureau of Medical Services for direct patient care through hospitals and clinics, and the Bureau of State Services for administering cooperative services to U.S. states through technical and financial assistance.
BSS was largely the successor to the Division of States Relations, which had grown out of the Domestic Quarantine Division, one of the original 1899 divisions. The Division of States Relations became part of BSS upon its creation, but was soon split into eleven separate divisions. The other two preexisting divisions incorporated into BSS were the Division of Venereal Disease, and the Division of Industrial Hygiene.
Functions
The name of the bureau implied that its programs would be directed towards cooperation with U.S. states, including both technical expertise and financial grants-in-aid, and its functions were quite diverse.
Its disease prevention activities were focused on public health surveillance, testing and evaluation of preventative and diagnostic measures, development of educational and training materials, and grants to states. The Communicable Disease Center focused on infectious diseases, and was based in Atlanta due to its initial mission of eradicating malaria in the United States. The Division of Chronic Diseases focused on other diseases, mainly cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, neurological disease, and mental retardation, in addition to aging and nursing homes. The Division of Dental Public Health focused on prevention and treatment of dental diseases. Tuberculosis and venereal diseases originally had their own divisions, but they came to be grouped with the Division of Chronic Diseases in the 1950s, and after 1960 were transferred to the Communicable Disease Center.
BSS's environmental health programs largely arose from Stream Pollution Investigations Station in Cincinnati. It had been created in 1912 and occupied a former U.S. Marine Hospital located in the former Kilgour Mansion. In the late 1940s it expanded into air, industrial, and chemical pollution and radiological health research, and in 1954 it moved to the newly constructed Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center. The occupational health programs arose from the Office of Industrial Hygiene and Sanitation, which was established in 1914, became the Division of Industrial Hygiene within the National Institute of Health in 1937, and moved into BSS upon its creation in 1943. Its primary functions moved from Bethesda to Cincinnati in 1950.
BSS's workforce development programs were centered in both the Division of Public Health Nursing and the Division of Dental Public Health. These programs sought to assist the training of dentists and nurses through advice, construction and project grants to states, and traineeships. It also provided advice on the planning and administration of health services.