The Secretary's Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2010 held its inaugural meeting April 21, 1997. Established by charter on September 5, 1996, the Council will oversee the development of Healthy People 2010, the Nation's prevention agenda of goals and objectives for the first decade of the 21st century. This initiative builds on the success of Healthy People 2000 which, by 1997, already had met 13 percent of its targets and was showing movement in the direction of the objectives in 43 percent of the others.
Jo Ivey Boufford, Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, chaired the meeting, and Secretary Donna Shalala participated.
The Council reviewed the lessons learned from the Healthy People initiative to apply to 2010. It also heard a report on the discussions of several focus groups. Focus group members were drawn from the Healthy People 2000 Consortium, an organization of State and territorial public health, mental health, substance abuse, and environmental agencies, as well as national membership organizations.
Several themes emerged from the focus group discussions-the need to address morbidity,
as well as mortality, in setting objectives; the value of packaging the 2010 information
in different formats for multiple audiences; the necessity of linking objectives to
community-based health improvement initiatives and accountability; and the importance of
using language that the public understands.
Proposed Framework
The Council reviewed the proposed framework for 2010: Two overarching goals-Increase years of healthy life and Eliminate health disparities-are proposed. These would be supported by four enabling goals-promote healthy behaviors, protect health, achieve access to quality health care, and strengthen community prevention. Objectives would be grouped into 25 focus areas, which would be a reordering of the year 2000 priority areas plus new areas.
The Council also discussed data issues to support this framework. A new strategy needs to be developed to improve data collection, particularly at the community level. Steps to improve information for consumers and for measuring access to and quality of health services need to be identified. Also, efforts to link performance measurement activities under the Government Performance and Results Act with the 2010 goals and objectives need to be clarified.
Work groups already have begun to develop objectives. A call for public comment on the proposed framework and submission of objectives will be published in the Federal Register this fall and announced in Developing Objectives for Healthy People 2010 which will be available in August on the Internet at http://odphp.osophs.dhhs.gov/pubs/hp2000. The development process will culminate in release of the Healthy People 2010 document in the year 2000.
The Secretary's Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2010 PARTICIPANTS AT THE INAUGURAL MEETING APRIL 21, 1997 |
Chair Donna E. Shalala,
Ph.D., Secretary Vice Chair Jo Ivey Boufford, M.D., M.P.H., Acting Assistant Secretary for Health Former Assistant Secretaries for Health Merlin K. DuVal, M.D. HHS Operating Division Heads Olivia Golden, Ph.D. (Acting), Administration for Children and Families Members Not in Attendance Edward N. Brandt, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Former Assistant Secretary for
Health |