Assessment is one of the three core functions of public health along with Policy Development and Assurance. Assessment is critical to the functioning of a local health department and its partners because if we do not know what the real problems are we can not develop policies to address them and can not assure that the relevant issues are being managed appropriately. Therefore, we gather information from many different sources, including the public, and produce reports that help us better understand our communities. View the following reports that we use: