Bone Health and Osteoporosis: A Report of the Surgeon General

Part Five: What Can Health Systems and Population-Based Approaches Do To Promote Bone Health?

This part of the report examines how health systems and population-based approaches can promote bone health.

Chapter 11 looks at the key systems-level issues and decisions that affect bone health care, including evidence-based medicine, clinical practice guidelines, training and education of health care professionals, quality assurance and quality improvement techniques, coverage policies, and disparities in prevention and treatment. It also evaluates the key roles of various stakeholders in promoting a more systems-based approach to bone health care, including individual clinicians; medical groups; health plans and other insurers; hospitals and rehabilitation facilities; public health departments; and other stakeholders, such as academic medical centers and public and private employers.

Chapter 12 describes the various potential components of population-based approaches to promoting bone health at the local, State, and Federal levels and reviews the evidence supporting their use. One of the key messages of this chapter is that well-crafted population-based interventions should be highly effective in improving bone health as well as other aspects of health. To illustrate this point, the chapter includes seven detailed profiles of innovative and/or effective population-based programs, each of which was selected to illustrate an important concept in population-based health.

Published: October 14, 2004

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