As much as possible, public health agencies try to achieve compliance with public health laws and standards through education, advice, and consultation, rather than through enforcement actions.  These informal approaches are more cost effective and they bolster the political support for the agency.  The CDC, for example, has almost no enforcement authority, but carries out its mission through education, consultation, and through using grant support to encourage better public health practices.

Food sanitation provides a good example of the consultative role in local public health. When a new restaurant is being planned, the health department can help assure that the plans will meet the sanitation code. This is very important for small businesses which are new to food handling.  Once the staff has been hired, the health department can help the employer train personnel who will be handling food, and can work with them to help understand the sanitary code requirements.  While the health department is often seen as an outsider that closes restaurants when it finds a problem, the health department has an important role in helping the restaurateur manage problems to protect the public and to protect the restaurant from closure or from legal claims that will result if a patron is injured by bad food.  This is especially important when there is a risk a communicable diseases such as typhoid or hepatitis A being spread in the workplace by an infected employee.