The overall goal of public health is to reduce or eliminate the incidence of specific diseases. When public health practices result in lessened disease threats, the relative value of public health in the policy process wanes. In an odd way, public health is successful when things don't happen, when people do not become ill; it is about negative instances, which are notoriously difficult to "count". Tying this observation to proposition two above, public health's budgetary fates rise during times of crisis and suffer during times of normality (9) .