Giant Steps and Baby Steps: Toward Child Health.

TECHNOLOGICAL innovations; TECHNOLOGICAL progress; MEDICAL innovations; MEDICAL technology; CHILDREN'S health; PRENATAL care; MEDICAL care; PREVENTIVE health services

The article provides a brief overview which demonstrates the history of child health. Major advances were undergone during the early part of the century through 1940s but experienced relative stagnation in 1950s and 1960s. It is certain that social progress, technologic advances in medicine and mechanisms to improve access to medical services have all contributed. The need to assess benefit from therapeutic services and especially for the assessment of benefit from preventive services has not kept pace with the state of the art of the measurement of health.