Healthy People 2020

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today unveiled Healthy
People 2020, the nation's new 10-year goals and objectives for health
promotion and disease prevention, and myHealthyPeople, a new challenge for
technology application developers.

For the past 30 years, Healthy People has been committed to improving the
quality of our Nations health by producing a framework for public health
prevention priorities and actions.

The launch of Healthy People 2020 comes at a critical time, said HHS
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  Our challenge and opportunity is to avoid
preventable diseases from occurring in the first place.

Chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are
responsible for seven out of every 10 deaths among Americans each year and
account for 75 percent of the nations health spending.  Many of the risk
factors that contribute to the development of these diseases are
preventable.

Too many people are not reaching their full potential for health because
of preventable conditions, said Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K.
Koh, M.D., M.P.H.  Healthy People is the nations roadmap and compass for
better health, providing our society a vision for improving both the
quantity and quality of life for all Americans.

The Healthy People initiative is grounded in the principle that setting
national objectives and monitoring progress can motivate action, and
indeed, in just the last decade, preliminary analyses indicate that the
country has either progressed toward or met 71 percent of its Healthy
People targets.

Healthy People 2020 is the product of an extensive stakeholder feedback
process that is unparalleled in government and health. It integrates input
from public health and prevention experts, a wide range of federal, state
and local government officials, a consortium of more than 2,000
organizations, and perhaps most importantly, the public. More than 8,000
comments were considered in drafting a comprehensive set of Healthy People
2020 objectives. Based on this input, a number of new topic areas are
included in the new initiative, including:

    * Adolescent Health
    * Blood Disorders and Blood Safety
    * Dementias, including Alzheimers Disease
    * Early and Middle Childhood
    * Genomics
    * Global Health
    * Health-Related Quality of Life and Well-Being
    * Healthcare-Associated Infections
    * Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health
    * Older Adults
    * Preparedness
    * Sleep Health
    * Social Determinants of Health

Healthy People is also issuing a special challenge to encourage developers
to create easy-to-use applications for professionals who are working with
the new national health objectives and state- and community-level health
data.

This milestone in disease prevention and health promotion creates an
opportunity to leverage information technology to make Healthy People come
alive for all Americans in their communities and workplaces, said Chief
Technology Officer Todd Park. The myHealthyPeople apps challenge will help
spur innovative approaches to helping communities track their progress
using Healthy People objectives and targets as well as develop an agenda
for health improvement.

HHS is also launching a newly redesigned Healthy People Web site that
allows users to tailor information to their needs and explore
evidence-based resources for implementation. The Web site is located at:
www.healthypeople.gov.  For more information about myHealthyPeople, go to
www.challenge.gov/