As resources become scarce there is increasing demand on the public health services to create a system of community-based and jointly used health protection services. Cohort surveys that are currently more and more reduced contribute to both primary and secondary prevention. They enable third parties to implement further prevention projects. In addition, due to continuous quality assessment and standardization process, they yield valid data for developing target-group-specific prevention strategies as well as for evaluating preventive measures. In this respect public health services already fulfil the demand for prevention in the social environment as outlined in the forthcoming Prevention Act. Preventive measures in the field of dental health, atopic diseases and vaccination are presented as examples. The integration of data from continuous cohort surveys into a health reporting system as a basis for developing and evaluating health targets and prevention projects at the state level is demonstrated.