This collection consists of reports, plans, manuals, informational bulletins, and miscellaneous unpublished papers issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Health and Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. The latter agency was created in 1972, and the Department of Health was incorporated into Health Services. This collection also contains a photograph of John Pomeroy, the first director of the Department of Health.

There is a particular emphasis on alcoholism in this collection, with statistical reports, strategic plans, and papers on the problem, as well as two major reports on drug abuse. The collection also contains an interesting run of unpublished papers that the Los Angeles County Health Department, Bureau of Medical Social Service, produced in the 1940s and early 1950s. The topics range from the Bureau's relationship with the University of California, Los Angeles, in the area of public health nursing, to the Bureau's report on the meeting in 1941 of the advisory committee of the U.S. Children's Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, and Crippled Children.