Measuring Progress toward Attainment of Healthy People Targets

In Healthy People 2010 (HP2010), assessing progress relative to targets across individual objectives was accomplished using the percent of targeted change achieved, also known as the progress quotient (PQ). This measure expressed the difference between the baseline and the most recent value for an objective relative to the difference between the baseline and the HP2010 target. As a relative measure of progress, the PQ normalized the different percent change requirements between objectives; however, the PQ did not reflect differences in difficulty of attaining targets, especially given that different objectives had different tracking periods and target-setting methods. For HP2020, we are considering alternative methods for measuring progress, particularly for objectives with annual data. One method under consideration is to calculate an annual average percentage change (AAPC) and compare it to the rate of progress needed at present to achieve a certain percent of the target in a preset number of years. Insofar as it aligns objectives to a common benchmark, this method provides a more useful progress assessment measure that may better convey the state of the nation's health to general audiences, including policy-makers and the public. Further, alternative measures could help better highlight areas in which significant progress has been made toward target achievement, as well as areas in which challenges have hindered meeting targets.