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Montana's Seventh Legislative Assembly created the State Board of Health of Montana in 1901. The Board was to "have the general care of the sanitary interests of the people" and was authorized to "make sanitary investigations and inquiries respecting the causes of disease, and especially epidemics, the causes of mortality and the influence of locality, employment, habits, and other circumstances and conditions, upon the health of the people." In 1967, with the creation of the State Department of Health, the State Board of Health was given the additional duty of overseeing the new department. The State Department of Health was abolished in 1971 and replaced with the Department of Health and Environmental Sciences. The same laws that created the new department continued the State Board of Health, but renamed it as the Board of Health and Environmental Sciences. This Board continued in existence until 1994.

The State Board of Health was responsible for the administration and enforcement of laws related to public health, including ensuring pure foods and drugs, inspecting tourist campgrounds, and licensing related businesses. The Food and Drug Division of the Board administered these sections of the law. The division director, sanitarian, and tourist campground inspector routinely conducted field inspections on restaurants, food- or drug-related businesses, hotels, tourist campgrounds, and water supplies to ensure sanitary conditions. The Food and Drug Division also licensed public eating places, meat markets, food manufacturers, soft drink manufacturers and distributors, and tourist campgrounds.

In October 1947 Governor Sam C. Ford appointed the Montana Health Planning Committee representing over forty professional, educational, farm, labor, civic, and welfare groups and official and voluntary agencies concerned with health and the general welfare. The Committee was to "seek to determine the health needs and resources of Montana, to make these known to the people of the State, to plan an adequate program for meeting needs, and to assist in carrying out such a program." The recommendation of the Committee was to organize local health planning councils to study local problems and plan for improvement in local areas. Activities of the Committee included sponsoring community organizations for Health workshops. The Committee worked closely with the Montana State Board of Health, Division of Public Health Education.