Bone Health and Osteoporosis: A Report of the Surgeon General

Part Six: Challenges and Opportunities: A Vision for the Future

The final chapter summarizes the key themes of the report, highlights those opportunities that have been identified for promoting bone health, and lays out a vision for how these opportunities can be realized so that bone health can be improved today and far into the future. The key to success will be for public and private stakeholders—including individual consumers; advocacy groups; health care professionals; health systems; academic medical centers; researchers; health plans and insurers; public health departments; and all levels of government—to join forces in developing a collaborative national action plan for promoting timely prevention, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of bone disease throughout life. To that end, these stakeholders need to work together to broaden the public’s and providers’ understanding of the importance of bone health and its relevance to general health and well-being and to ensure that existing and future preventive, diagnostic, and treatment measures for bone diseases and disorders are made available to all Americans.

Published: October 14, 2004

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