[Fragmented Heterogeneity as Leitmotiv of Public Health Practice in Germany? - Plenary Lecture at the Forum Future Public Health, Berlin 2016].

Heterogeneity is a constitutive element of public health practice in Germany. The Public Health Service as a traditional field of public health is - like the currently booming health promotion and disease prevention landscape - faced with major challenges in its attempt to create more health for vulnerable population groups. Additional expenditure on small-scale prevention concepts and interventions and vastly differentiated job profiles are not per se beneficial to achieve this aim. The future of public health practice lies rather in the development of integrated communal concepts of action such as prevention chains. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.