Healthy People in Healthy Communities

Healthy People in Healthy Communities Healthy People 2010 The United States is in pretty bad physical shape. More children and adults alike are not only considered obese, but they live a lifestyle conducive to maintaining a dangerous Body Mass Index. In an effort to curtail this vicious cycle, the United States Department of Health and Human Services has created a long-term program aimed at the overall improvement of Americans' physical and mental health.

Healthy People 2010 is a multi-faceted program developed to create self-awareness, responsibility, and overall healthy lifestyle choices for all Americans (Healthy People 2010 Homepage). There are two main goals set forth by the program, each containing several sub-areas. Firstly, the United States Department of Health and Human Services wishes to extend both life expectancy and increase overall quality of life for all Americans. Secondly, the program aims to eliminate differences in health between the rich and the poor and the able and the disabled.

The program aims to reach citizens of all economic levels, treating each person equally within the health care system. In order to track its effectiveness a series of leading health indicators (or LHIs) has been created to better segment the different areas set forth to focus on for a national health turnaround. The ten areas defined are physical activity, overweight/obesity, tobacco use, substance abuse, responsible sexual behavior, mental health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization, and access to health care.

The main focus of the program is at combating the current major health weaknesses and reteaching healthy lifestyles plaguing the nation with a subsidiary focus on creating healthy decision making in the first place. Healthy People 2010 is actually nothing more than the statement of the goals set forth by the program. The actual implementation of the program is defined within a related program called HealthierUS (Healthy People 2010 and Steps to a Healthier U.S.: Leading Prevention).

The goal of HealthierUS is to create liaisons with local hospitals, physicians, businesses, governmental, and non-governmental agencies to all concurrently promote the same program. The public view will be a consistent message from a variety of angles within daily American life, creating an awareness and an urgency for personal health responsibility. A third leg to the program is called Steps to a Healthier U.S. which focuses on the prevention of poor health choices to create better quality of life and overall health, leading to an improved society at large.

Impact to Community In order for the goals of the Healthy People 2010 program to work, there needs to be a great amount of delivery of the message on the local level across the country. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has already contemplated this requirement and has developed a multi-dimensional marketing and implementation plan.

In order to gain widespread attention and recognition, actor and comedian Bill Cosby was enlisted as the program's endorser and has created a series of public service messages about the program (Bill Cosby Public Service Announcements). The more often that the messages are displayed across American television sets, the more likely it is that the message will have impact on local communities. Many communities are already showing a concern for the growing obesity issue, especially within the public school system, and have implemented changes to accommodate the nation's health goals.

For example, in Illinois, public schools may no longer vend soft drinks, candy, and other determined sweets, and fund raising efforts may no longer be supported by candy sales. Instead the machines are filled with milk, Snapple, and dried fruit snacks, and the fund raising sales are from small gifts and wrapping paper. This is directly in line with the goals of Healthy People 2010, as long as overall consumption does not drastically drop for external and alternate choices.

Another example of local implementation aligned with goals of Healthy People 2010 is located in the city of Madison, Wisconsin. The city has provided designated bright red bicycles for public use in the city in order to promote public transportation instead of driving. The rules are that they are not to go outside of certain street limits but can be picked up at any time, anywhere (means that if you leave it outside the barbershop, it may be gone when you return!).

This direct support by government is not only a message but an action that can provide true results for the Healthy People 2010 goals. Other local, public expectations of the program would be with a plethora of printed, visual, and audio messages. People need to be constantly reminded about something in order for it to be meaningful, especially if it requires such a drastic change of lifestyle. However, this also requires a serious effort at public and private industry to reach out to patients to show their dedication to the program.

The more localized the message becomes, the more personal it becomes, and the more impact it can have on each affected individual. Patients need to know that not only are the ability and resources available to make any and all necessary changes to put one's life in line with a healthy person, but that there are no longer traditional barriers to access these services and resources.

The envisioned effect of an impacted community would result in lower injury, depression, suicide, addiction, obesity, and sickness and a higher collegiality, emphasis on physical activity, and support from all angles within society. In short, a successful implementation of Healthy People 2010 would result in Happy Land! Henry G. Taylor, Commissioner for the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health, issued an introductory statement of the program with great enthusiasm and encouragement (Taylor, 2001). Through his presentation of the program, he pointed out all of the efforts already undertaken by the state.

West Virginia created some additional provisions in their own version of the 2010 program by adding an end-of-life provision for improvement of care during these times. In addition, improvement of data collection, storage, and analysis for usage during this process was being undertaken to fully accommodate the great amount of stakeholders in the West Virginia Healthy People 2010 initiative. The seeds of change have.