This article, the first in a three-part series on public health, promotes the case for community nurses to grasp the opportunities a public health approach to care offers to populations and communities. The importance of organisation and evaluation are emphasised as is the need for support from colleagues which, argue the authors, can only be obtained if the benefits of this approach are made clear. The second article in the series will appear next week The growing awareness of the public health potential of nurses in primary care (SNMAC 1995) has provided a welcome change from the individualistic health education model that has dominated preventive health care since the 1960s. For health visitors who have been involved in community development approaches and are committed to looking beyond the individual, the current interest in public health is an opportunity they must not allow to pass them by. This approach brings together a community development model with an epidemiological knowledge base, legitimising the work of many health visitors who have struggled to have their work accepted as a mainstream activity.