Public Commenting Open on Healthy People 2020 Objectives

By Rachel Walden — December 7, 2009

Healthy People is a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that sets health objectives for the nation for a ten-year period. The current set of objectives is referred to as Healthy People 2010, but as 2010 is fast approaching, the department is considering a new set of health priorities to target through 2020.

The objectives typically cover preventable disease, increasing quality and length of life, and the elimination of health disparities across a range of focus areas. For example, Healthy People 2010 included an objective to “Reduce cesarean births among low-risk (full term, singleton, vertex presentation) women” and provided a 15% target c-section rate for first births, and 63% for births after previous cesarean. This target has not been met, with the CDC data from 19 states indicating that in 2006 – the most recent year of finalized data currently available – 23.5 of every 100 first, live births was by cesarean, and repeat cesarean rates were about 92%. It has been included again as-is for the 2020 objectives.

The agency is now accepting public comments on the proposed 2020 objectives. For each focus area (such as access to health services, maternal, infant, and child health, cancer, etc.), you can review objectives retained as-is, modified or dropped from the HP2010 goals, as well as clearly seeing objectives new to HP2020. You can then comment directly on an individual objective, and review comments already submitted.

There are many, many others which Our Bodies Our Blog readers may want to review and comment on, in focus areas such as maternal health, disability, cancer, older adults, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent health, family planning, violence prevention, and environmental health. You can create a profile on the site, or choose to view objectives and comment anonymously. Comments are being accepted through December 31, 2009.

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