DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Meeting of: Secretary's Council on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for
2010
April 23, 1999, Proceedings
DR. MEYERS: We could do some summary of some of the key take-home items that we see. We will, of course, go through the transcript with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that we have not missed anything, but we saw several next steps.
On the framework, we got the message that we have the fundamental conceptualization, but we need to do a better job of including individuals and communities, more specifically, that the individual behavior part we have not gotten quite right yet, and that we also need to work on translating those concepts that are in the model in a separate activity.
On Volume I, if you all have comments for Mark Smolinski, please, if he could have them by May 7, that would be tremendous. This is a first draft, and it is just starting to go through the process of being shared with others.
On Leading Health Indicators, we appreciated all the thoughtful comments, and we heard a number of items of consensus that we are moving forward with. One is, 10 or less. Another is we should assume that the determinants of health and health outcomes set, whatever we call that, is the appropriate way to proceed. We need to remember that modifications to that set need to maintain the conceptual integrity while increasing representativeness of the Healthy People focus areas.
There were also a number of specific suggestions that the working group has made that we should continue with. We need to, in particular, pick up on the idea of the up-to-date concept that Dr. Isham mentioned, the notion of a system in relation to cancer screening and some of the other measures.
On the crosscutting area, we know that the lead agencies are going to be running the focus areas through another filter to bring greater focus; that Dr. Lurie will lead the Healthy People Steering Committee to take a critical look at the objectives, particularly looking for redundancy, respecting the public comments, but also trying to achieve a better balance and priorities; looking at the science that will help make these decisions; and looking to make sure that we drive action toward desired outcomes with the objectives, that we focused on the greatest yield for improved health outcomes. We also picked up that agencies need to be willing to commit their resources to the objectives in their areas, including resources to measure the objectives.
Dr. Sondik also had a number of very clear points. Let me do one-a plan. Dr. Sondik called for a process over the next few months on data efforts, to develop a plan for data sources in HHS and those that need to be developed. The sense was that there was agreement to that.
DR. SATCHER: Okay, very good. I think I have run out of reasons to keep you here. So let me just say how much we appreciate all of your participation and how very valuable this has been for us. Just as we continue to struggle with this, I will remind you again of those famous words of John Gardner-life is full of golden opportunities carefully disguised as irresolvable problems. So let's keep at it. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:47 p.m., the meeting was concluded.]