Mission, Vision, and History of the Rhode Island Department of Health

Mission:

The primary mission of the Rhode Island Department of Health is to prevent disease and to protect and promote the health and safety of the people of Rhode Island.

Vision:

All people in Rhode Island will have the opportunity to live a safe and healthy life in a safe and healthy community.

History:

The State of Rhode Island has a long history of leadership and excellence in the field of public health. In 1854, Dr. Edwin Snow pioneered efforts to document and analyze a wave of cholera which attacked the citizens of Providence. Tracking the disease among his own patients, he devoted himself to tracing its source and preventing its recurrence.

Snow became the first Superintendent in 1856 when Providence established a permanent city health department. Twenty-two years later, a State Board of Health was formed with three mandates: preventing the spread of disease, collecting vital statistics, and implementing a sanitation program.

In 1883, Dr. Charles Value Chapin became Providence's Superintendent of Health. Dr. Chapin continued Dr. Snow's efforts, improving sanitation, advocating city sewer construction, establishing quarantine regulations, and identifying the source of a cholera outbreak in 1888.

Dr. Chapin instituted mandatory reporting of contagious disease cases such as scarlet fever and diphtheria. He was a leader in discouraging fumigation of houses as a disease prevention measure and established the nation's first contagious disease hospital, the Providence City Hospital, in 1910.

Today, the Rhode Island Department of Health is a diverse and interactive state agency with broad-ranging public health responsibilities. While communicable disease control, vital records, environmental health and other functions carry on the traditions established in Dr. Snow's era, newer and equally important functions of today's Health Department include minority health, chronic disease prevention, health promotion, injury control, public informational and many others.

In this decade following the Year 2000, the Health Department reemphasizes its commitment to health promotion and disease prevention: keeping Rhode Islanders healthy and active from birth through old age. Your Health Department is an introduction to the many programs and services working to serve you and your family in today's Department of Health.