Public health budgets are being slashed by £85m - affecting areas such as sexual health and stop smoking services, a think tank has warned.
A new analysis from the King's Fund says central government cuts have forced councils to reduce their planned spending on a range of services.
While some spending will be protected, such as promoting exercise and some children's services, most are facing a cut, it said.
Planned spending on sexual health services, for example, has fallen by £64 million, or by 10% over the past four years.
This is despite a rise in some sexually-transmitted infections including syphilis and gonorrhoea.
Services will be cut by £30 million compared to last year, a 5% cut.
Tackling drug misuse in adults will face a 5.5% cut of more than £22 million, while stop smoking services will fall by almost £16 million, a 15% cut, the data showed.
The King's Fund said many of these services have already had to cope with years of falling budgets.
David Buck, senior fellow in public health and inequalities at the King's Fund, said: "These planned cuts in services are the result of central government funding cuts that are increasingly forcing councils to make difficult choices about which services they fund.
"Reducing spending on public health is short-sighted at the best of times.
"But at a time when the rate of syphilis is at its highest level for 70 years, to cut spending on sexual health services is the falsest of false economies and is storing up problems for the future.
"The Government must reverse these cuts and ensure councils get adequate resources to fund vital public health services."
Based on Department for Communities and Local Government data and like-for-like analysis, the briefing shows that councils in England will spend £2.52 billion on public health services in 2017/18 compared to £2.60 billion the previous year.
The King's Fund said that once inflation is factored in, it estimates that, on a like-for-like basis, planned public health spending is over 5% less in 2017/18 than it was in 2013/14.
It said the reductions follow Government cuts in public health funding of at least £600 million by 2020/21, on top of £200 million already cut from the 2015/16 budget.
Figures out last month showed the number of cases of syphilis have reached the highest level since 1949.
Cases of the infection across England have rocketed since 2012, according to data from Public Health England (PHE).
In 2016, there were 5,920 syphilis diagnoses - an increase of 12% from the previous year (from 5,281 to 5,920) and a 97% rise from 2012 (from 3,001 to 5,920).
Prof John Middleton, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: "Public health services are there to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of our local populations.
"Our members are telling us that these planned cuts will make it more likely that people will turn up at A&E or end up in hospital.
"Our message to the new Government is that prevention is better than cure.
"If we are to tackle the NHS crisis properly, then we will need to invest more in public health services across the country to keep more people well and out of hospital."
A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "We have a strong track record on public health - cancer survival and dementia diagnosis are at a record high whilst smoking rates and teen pregnancies are at an all-time low.
"Over the current spending period we will invest more than £16 billion in local government public health services.
"Moreover, we have shown that we are willing to take tough action to protect the public's health - introducing standardised packaging of cigarettes, a soft drinks industry levy and a world-leading childhood obesity plan."