Healthy People 2020: Shaping the next decade's disease prevention and health promotion agenda

Each decade since 1979, the US Department of Health and Human Services has issued a comprehensive set of national public health objectives that has served as a framework for communities, states and other countries own disease prevention and health promotion plans. The initiative, known as Healthy People, is grounded on the notion that setting national objectives and monitoring progress can motivate action. As the Department prepares for the development a new set of national objectives for the next decade, the program faces new challenges. As our nation confronts such issues as bioterrorism, pandemic flu, and an obesity epidemic, our strategies (and resources) for promoting the Nation's health must reflect those evolving needs. How should we address them? How can we balance the need for more objectives against the resources needed to manage them? How should we obtain input from the public and from public health advocates? How can we accomplish coordination with other health indicator sets? This session will provide background on previous efforts, describe HHS efforts to develop a set of health objectives for 2020, and present the proposed framework, vision, overarching goals and mission for Healthy People 2020. Strategies for public health professionals at national, state and local levels who wish to participate in the development process will be described.