A History of the Healthy People initiative and its relevance to community health planning and policy development

The 1979 U.S. Surgeon General's report "Healthy People" laid the foundation for a national prevention agenda. The reports "Promoting Health/Preventing Disease: Objectives for the Nation" (1980), and "Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives" (1990), both established national health objectives and served as the basis for the development of State and community plans. Today, Healthy People 2010 has a diverse set of uses and users ranging from public health planners at Federal, state and local levels, to researchers and academic institutions, and business, who collectively use the science-based disease prevention and health promotion interventions in Healthy People to improve the health of their respective communities and achieve their unique missions. A representative from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion— the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services office with leading and coordinating responsibility for Healthy People, will discuss the history and evolution of the Healthy People agenda over the past three decades—the goals, framework, scope and size of each decennial iteration and the direction being taken for Healthy People 2020. How the national agenda has served as a template for community health planning and policy development by multiple users will also be discussed.