3.8: The Healthy People Initiative-2030
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The Healthy People Initiative began in 1979 due to another landmark surgeon general report titled: “Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention” (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d.-a) Each decade, the initiative sets targets for improving different areas of public health, and measures these outcomes to see if those targets have been hit. The overarching goals have changed over the years, but most have included decreasing or eliminating health disparities, and promoting health for all across the lifespan. The latest iteration - Healthy People 2030 - emphasizes the social determinants of health, including: economic stability, education access and quality, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social and community context (more on these in Chapter 8). There is also a new focus in the 2030 objectives of health literacy - the ability to find, understand and use information to make well-informed health decisions. An emphasis is also placed on the responsibility of health organizations to provide equitable access to health information and support its use in individual decision-making. The Healthy People 2030 website offers descriptions and the latest data on each health-related objective. (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d.-b).