Oral

For 3 decades, Healthy People has provided science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. This initiative is grounded in the principle that setting national objectives and monitoring progress can motivate action. Healthy People 2020 is the product of an extensive stakeholder feedback process that is unparalleled in government and health. It integrates input from public health and prevention experts, a wide range of federal, state and local government officials, a consortium of more than 2,000 organizations, and perhaps most importantly, the public. One of the changes from Healthy People 2010 is the addition of several new topic areas that are focused on stages of life. They include: Early and Middle Childhood, Adolescent Health, and Older Adults. The Healthy People 2020 framework, a national agenda that communicates a vision for improving health and achieving health equity, provides an opportunity for assessing the health of each community as well as the health of the nation as a whole. It includes a set of specific, measurable objectives with targets to be achieved over the decade, with objectives grouped into topic areas. This rich resource has vast potential for use in assessing the extent to which we as a society collectively assure the conditions in which people across the life span can be healthy. After an overview of Healthy People 2020, presenters will discuss the development of implementation strategies and show how local health departments and other public health planners working on critical issues across the life span can use Healthy People to gauge their success in community health assessment and community health improvement planning.

Session Objectives: Describe how Healthy People 2020 can be used in community health assessment and community health improvement planning, with regard to health across the life span. Discuss ways of using Healthy People 2020 to assess the extent to which a community is creating the conditions which assure health for all people across the life span. Describe how Healthy People 2020 can be utilized by a local community coalition in their work towards improved health.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)