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. SATCHER: Thank you very much, Madame Secretary, for your introduction, but also, thank you for your leadership in the development of Healthy People 2010. Let me also join the Secretary in welcoming you to this very important meeting. The Secretary's Council on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention: Objectives for 2010 could be our most critical meeting, and we have had some very important ones.
I am David Satcher, Assistant Secretary for Health and Surgeon General, and I am delighted to serve as Vice Chair of this very important Council. I am also very pleased that we are joined today by the gentlemen who have formerly served as Assistant Secretary for Health and have done so much to lay the foundation for Healthy People.
I want to do two things briefly. One is to bring you up to date in terms of what has happened since our last meeting and then introduce today's meeting. Some of us are struggling a little bit with spring allergies, but we are going to get through this.
[Laughter.]
Since our last meeting in April, 1998, I think a lot of things have been accomplished. As you know, the draft document, Healthy People 2010, which some people more commonly refer to as "the big yellow book", was published and posted on the Web for public comment. We have had six public hearings, including the five regional meetings and the Healthy People Consortium, which included a meeting of the Business Council, which was a very productive meeting. We have had at least 2,000 people to attend these meetings.
I was able to attend five out of six of those meetings and really appreciated the opportunity to hear from the public and to interact with them. Drs. Richmond, Brandt, and Windom also joined us at least at one of those meetings. I believe all three of them were at the Consortium meeting. I know Julie was very active in Philadelphia.
Over 11,000 comments were received on the draft document and are now posted on the Internet. For the first time in the history of this initiative, people throughout the nation and, really, even around the world can read all of the comments that were made in response to the draft document. So technology is really moving us ahead, and the use of this technology by the department is moving us ahead.
Our responsibility, I think, is to blend these comments with rigorous science and supporting data and a judicial sense of priorities. For example, as a result of public comments, we have added focus areas on chronic kidney disease and on vision and hearing impairment. Now I will just remind you that for Healthy People 2000, we had 22 focus areas. When we went out with the draft document, we had already added four, and most of them had to do with the quality of life issues, for example, arthritis, chronic back pain, disabilities. We also added Health Communication and Public Health Infrastructure before we went out with the draft document. But as the result of comments, we have also now added two other areas. So we are up to 28 categories of objectives, or focus areas, and that is why it is going to be so important today for us to discuss Leading Health Indicators, which Roger will help us with.
We are also working to strengthen linkages with other Federal agencies and have invited the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the Department of Education to join CDC as a co-lead on the Disability and Secondary Conditions focus area. We have also invited the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture to co-lead with FDA the Food Safety focus area, and I think we are going to be doing much more of this. The Secretary is involved with a lot of the other agencies around issues relating to children's health, environmental health and safety, and school health. So I think we are going to see much more of this in the future.
The goals of the meeting for today are really to look at three areas for discussion and guidance. The first is, how do we best link the framework of Healthy People 2010 with the goals and Leading Health Indicators? Much of the public comment to which I previously referred requested a stronger framework for the document, and we believe we have been responsive to that request, and it will be really important to get your feedback.
The second item is the selection of the Leading Health Indicators, and this is a tough one. Dr. Lurie's recommendation to the Institute of Medicine was to have only as many Indicators as one has fingers. She told them that they could not count their toes.
[Laughter.]
But today's panel will describe the progress we have made on Leading Health Indicators and ask for your input as we work to complete the set. Seriously, it is really critical, I think, that we be better able to communicate directly to the American people what we are all trying to achieve together so that, even though we have these big, large documents that mean a lot to us, we can really communicate on a few areas of real importance for the American people to lock into in terms of their own lives.
Finally, we will address crosscutting issues related to focus areas and objectives. This will include both a review of the process and presentations by Healthy People co-lead agencies.
Those are our three major discussion items for this morning-linking the framework, the goals, and Leading Health Indicators; options for Leading Health Indicators; and crosscutting issues relating to focus areas and objectives. All of these involve an analysis of, and a response to, public comment, coupled with good judgment about priorities and possibilities.
I want to say to Bob Brooks from Florida, we are delighted to have you with us. I think it means a lot to have a health commissioner from a State to help us really think through this, and we appreciate your being here.
We expect that we will need to break for lunch at some point in the middle of our discussion of focus areas and objectives. So we will pick up with that same topic after lunch. Also after lunch, we will explore how to engage new stakeholders in health through Volume I of Healthy People 2010, as well as how to address data issues through Volume III. Other business items on the agenda will include preparing to launch Healthy People 2010-that January 24-28 meeting of 2000 that the Secretary referred to-and a review of recommendations and next steps.
I would like to leave time at the end of the meeting for public comments. I think that is important. Despite the fact that we have had a lot of public comments already, it is important, whenever we have this kind of meeting, to allow time for public comments.
Let me also remind you that, because this Council is meeting under the rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, our proceedings are being transcribed and, like our previous deliberations, will be posted on the Internet. Okay, with that then, why don't we get started with Framework and Goals, unless there are questions. Any questions?
DR. SHALALA: Yes, let's see if anyone has any questions about the agenda. We are going to try to keep to the timeframe.
DR. SATCHER: Okay, we have a lot to accomplish. So we are going to turn the first item over to Dr. Linda Meyers, who is the Acting Director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and I must say Linda has done an outstanding job as Acting Director. I do not know if they give Oscars for Acting Director, but she has been great.
[Laughter.]
So Linda, why don't you lead us in this?