Standards are a yardstick against which performance can be assessed and improved. Standards are well established in healthcare settings; however, population health standards have only recently been developed for area health services in NSW. This paper describes international and Australian population health standards, and presents the results of a pilot evaluation of the NSW Population Health Standards for Area Health Services against the Greater Western Area Health Service performance requirements. The findings revealed that the standards relating to the work of specialist population health staff feature in performance requirements; however the standards requiring the contribution of other health service staff do not. Population health standards have the potential to guide the health system towards population health goals.