This article offers compelling reasons for a public health approach to child maltreatment prevention. It outlines a theoretical and conceptual framework to maximize the reach of interventions to a large cross-section of the population, to ensure overall wellbeing and reduce the incidence of child maltreatment. The authors maintain that such an approach would lead to improvements in the surveillance system, publicized social norms and policies, utilized evidence based practice, and enhance existing systems. They also believe this approach would result in increased and/or shifted funding for primary prevention programs. This program could serve as a model for other states or counties to enhance their own child maltreatment prevention efforts, with the state health department playing a key role.