Collection consists of program files, reports, publications, and photographs of the City of Dallas Health Department.

 

The Dallas Health Department was created in 1872 by the City of Dallas Board of Aldermen, who employed Matt Cornelius, MD as city physician and health officer.  Until 1916, the health officer of the City of Dallas was also head of the city hospital.  The City and County Hospitals were informally linked through the construction of Parkland Hospital in 1913 and legally consolidated in 1923.  The Dallas City-County Hospital was replaced by the Dallas County Hospital District in 1954, creating a separate entity and eliminating the funding and governance functions split between the City of Dallas and Dallas County.

During its peak, the department included programs for enforcing food safety regulations for all commercial food establishments; code enforcement activities related to air pollution control and vector control; early periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment; and walk-in immunizations. It also administered numerous grants which augmented child care, nutrition, services for seniors, emergency social services, job training, and other educational programs.

As most functions were transferred to the Dallas County Health Department, the department changed names several times, including Health and Human Services, and in its last embodiment, as the Department of Environmental and Health Services.  The department's last organizational structure included four divisions: Vital Statistics, Environmental Health, Health Services, and Human Services.  Vital Statistics, the enumeration of births and deaths in the City of Dallas, was instituted in 1873 but transferred to Dallas Water Utilities in 2010.