Abstract
The article deals with the concept, development, and current state of public health in the Czech lands as a theoretical and practical scientific discipline, as it has been formed and profiled during more than two hundred years of history. It identifies five developmental stages, which briefly characterizes and introduces important representatives of the field at the time.
It describes the transformation of public health care after 1989 and points out some of the consequences of institutional reduction associated with the weakening of the field, which became fully apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.