Yesterday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) presented the leading health indicators (LHI) for Healthy People 2020, which include a call to increase the proportion of adults who meet the federal physical activity guidelines for aerobic physical activity and muscle-strengthening activity.
Healthy People 2020 provides a comprehensive set of 10-year, national goals and objectives for improving the health of all Americans. The program contains 42 topic areas with nearly 600 objectives that encompass 1,200 measures. LHIs are a small set of Healthy People 2020 objectives that are composed of 26 indicators organized under 12 topics considered high-priority areas for action.
Other LHIs under the Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity topic area include reducing the proportion of adults and children/adolescents (aged 2-19 years) who are obese from 34.0% to 30.6% and 16.2% to 14.6%, respectively.
To help increase access to health care services, Healthy People 2020 recommends increasing the number of people with medical insurance from 83.2% to 100% and increasing the percentage of people with a usual primary care provider from 76.3% to 83.9%.
One LHI has been identified under the diabetes objectives: to reduce the proportion of the population with diabetes with an A1c value greater than 9%.
APTA is a member of the Healthy People Consortium—an alliance of more than 350 national membership organizations. The association submitted comments to HHS on the Healthy People 2020 draft objectives.
I wonder how many taxpayer $$ paid how many desk jockeys to come up with this stuff. And we wonder why the government is broke! Who is going to tell all the people who a) are working 2-3 jobs to get by and b) have no money at all that they need to go to the gym? These are all nice thoughts when you live in an ivory tower!
Posted by Melanie Welch PT
on 11/4/2011 1:25 PM
If you have seen recent statictics on the obesity epidemic and how much $$$ it will cost in the future, you would see how imperitive it is to get people to be more active. That said, as a PT working full time plus a part time and working on my DPT, I don't get all of the exercise I need either. It's hard!
Posted by Anne Vickers
on 11/6/2011 7:27 AM
Almost 10% of all medical costs, $147 billion, are related to obesity, a disease of epidemic proportions. This does not include the 60% of the baby boomers who will have a chronic condition such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, or arthritis. Impressively, Healthy People 2020's Mission, Vision, and Goals are clearly stated in only 3 pages and has the support of over 350 professional organizations. The success of Healthy People 2020 is not dependent on the amount of taxpayer dollars utilized, but on practioners embracing the concept and passionately educating their patients and clients.
Posted by Zach Sutton, DPT, MS, OCS, ATC
on 11/7/2011 10:03 PM