Healthy Lives Healthy People

The Government recognises that many lifestyle-driven health problems are at alarming levels: obesity; high rates of sexually transmitted infections; a relatively large population of drug users; rising levels of harm from alcohol; 80,000 deaths a year from smoking; poor mental health; health inequalities between rich and poor. This white paper outlines the Government's proposals to protect the population from serious health threats; help people live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives; and improve the health of the poorest. It aims to empower individuals to make healthy choices and give communities and local government the freedom, responsibility and funding to innovate and develop ways of improving public health in their area. The paper responds to Sir Michael Marmot's strategic review of health inequalities in England post 2010 - "Fair society, healthy lives" (available at http://www.marmotreview.org/AssetLibrary/pdfs/Reports/FairSocietyHealthyLives.pdf) and adopts its life course framework for tackling the wider social determinants of health. A new dedicated public health service - Public Health England - will be created to ensure excellence, expertise and responsiveness, particularly on health protection where a national response is vital. The paper gives a timetable showing how the proposals will be implemented and an annex sets out a vision of the role of the Director of Public Health. The Department is also publishing a fuller story on the health of England in "Our health and wellbeing today" (http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_122238.pdf), detailing the challenges and opportunities, and in 2011 will issue documents on major public health issues.

Every ten years, the Department of Health and Human Service's Healthy People Initiative develops a new set of science-based, national objectives with the goal of improving the health of all Americans. Defining balanced and comprehensive criteria for healthy people enables the public, programs, and policymakers to gauge our progress and reevaluate efforts towards a healthier society. Criteria for Selecting the Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2030 makes recommendations for the development of Leading Health Indicators for the initiative's Healthy People 2030 framework. The authoring committee's assessments inform their recommendations for the Healthy People Federal Interagency Workgroup in their endeavor to develop the latest Leading Health Indicators. The finalized Leading Health Indicators will establish the criteria for healthy Americans and help update policies that will guide decision-marking throughout the next decade. This report also reviews and reflects upon current and past Healthy People materials to identify gaps and new objectives.

Drawing on input from people with long-term ailments, this book points the way to achieving the best possible life under the circumstances.

Bioterrorism, drug-resistant disease, transmission of disease by global travel . . . there's no shortage of challenges facing America's public health officials. Men and women preparing to enter the field require state-of-the-art training to meet these increasing threats to the public health. But are the programs they rely on provide the high caliber professional training they require? Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? provides an overview of the past, present, and future of public health education, assessing its readiness to provide the training and education needed to prepare men and women to face 21st century challenges. Advocating an ecological approach to public health, the Institute of Medicine examines the role of public health schools and degree-granting programs, medical schools, nursing schools, and government agencies, as well as other institutions that foster public health education and leadership. Specific recommendations address the content of public health education, qualifications for faculty, availability of supervised practice, opportunities for cross-disciplinary research and education, cooperation with government agencies, and government funding for education. Eight areas of critical importance to public health education in the 21st century are examined in depth: informatics, genomics, communication, cultural competence, community-based participatory research, global health, policy and law, and public health ethics. The book also includes a discussion of the policy implications of its ecological framework.

Considers health of the body, mind, and spirit, offering advice on how to make sense of contradictory media information, understand the link between mental and physical health, and recruit support during illness.

"Despite a culture pervaded by the language of health (e.g., buzz phrases like healthy living, healthy eating, healthy environments), there are many mysteries surrounding the pursuit of health and wellness. Health is often a very personal matter, protected by privacy law. Health is distributed unequally in society, as are the conditions necessary for wellness. Health is increasingly medicalized, with the goal of making people healthy lost in anxiety over the threat of illness and the need for treatments, both biomedical and alternative.

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.