Public health services and systems research has gone through several evolutions and efforts to both describe it and create some identity for the discipline. From the onset, the notion was to build on the discipline of health services research as a basis for research focused on the public health system. The involvement of AcademyHealth (AH) (for which Health Services Research is an official journal) has a long history in the activities of this area, including the creation of a special interest group focused on public health, with a separate meeting at their Annual Research meeting.The program, Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and administered by AH, had a major role in early funding of health services research focused on public health. More recently, AH has convened sessions to examine research methods in this new area as well as meetings with stakeholder groups to discuss and clarify the role of this emerging research discipline.