Healthy People 2020

Healthcare Discussion What do you think will be the most important new or expanded role for public health or health education in 2030 and beyond? Explain why. The big thing, in my opinion, will be preventative care and lifestyle changes with a major focus needing to be on the poor. For example, the fight against obesity has largely been successful but it has been lagging, as I understand it, with the poor and the poor are often in a minority status such as black and Hispanic.

That is one thing that ObamaCare did very well in that it helped with cancer screenings, physicals and so forth. There has also been a focus on pre-existing conditions…that is also good. However, it has to be recognized and realized that a lot of the conditions that cripple and kill so many Americans are entire preventable. Examples include many cancers, heart disease, diabetes and so forth. There is ground being made up but things need to be ratcheted up even more.

Treating a disease once it has emerged is all well and good but preventing it from happening in the first place or "nipping it in the bud" early is even better. Preventing the disease is less messy and much less expensive than the cure. Provide a description of one goal that does not appear in Healthy People 2020 that you think might be in Healthy People 2030. Explain your answer and defend your choice by providing supporting resources.

In looking at the headers on the Healthy People website (link below), the lifestyle thing mentioned above is not really mentioned and it really should be. For those that have not read it, that would be the idea that preventative care and preventative lifestyle choices are a huge part of preventing people from getting diseases that are entirely preventable such as diabetes, heart disease and so forth. Cutting down on the rates of those diseases through better education and child upbringing would yield tremendous results.

Link: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/default Prioritize future health systems, programs, and policies that might affect the future of public health and health education. Support your decision by citing/referring to this week's Learning Resources and/or sources found through your own research. To keep with the theme of the prior posts from the current group of responses and the Healthy People 2020 offerings, a few come.