By Robert L. Herron, MA, CSCS*D, ACSM-CEP |
On August 18, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) released the fifth iteration of the Health People initiative, Healthy People 2030. Since 1980, the Healthy People initiative has set goals and measurable objectives to improve health and well-being in the United States. Healthy People 2030 builds on knowledge gained over the past four decades to address current and emerging public health priorities and challenges.
An interdisciplinary team of subject matter experts developed national health objectives and targets for the next 10 years. These objectives focus on the most high-impact public health issues and reflect an increased focus on the social determinants of health — how the conditions where people live, work, and play affect their health and well-being. Of note, there are 355 core or measurable objectives – a decrease from previous initiatives.
Furthermore, Health Literacy received consideration throughout this iteration – which is more important than ever. There are two operational definitions based on the application:
- Personal health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
- Organizational health literacy is the degree to which organizations equitably enable individuals to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.
Additionally, social determinants of health featured prominently. Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.
By using Healthy People 2030 in your work, you can help improve health nationwide. Objectives are organized into intuitive topics so you can easily find data that is relevant to your work.
Whether you work in sport, community health, fitness, clinical health, health promotion, or any of the many other applications, Healthy People 2030 provides evidence-based resources and tools you can use to set strategies for reaching Healthy People targets in your school, community, state, or organization. Start exploring Healthy People 2030 today!
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Robert L. Herron is a faculty member at the United States Sports Academy. Robert is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist® with distinction from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA-CSCS*D®) and a Clinical Exercise Physiologist through the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM-CEP®). rherron@ussa.edu