An unprecedented federal plan to shift the nation from its present sick-care system to one based on prevention and wellness goes into motion this month.
With the much-anticipated release of the National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy, prevention will move to the forefront of the nation’s efforts to improve health.
To be released late this month by the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council — the federal body created under last year’s health reform law — the strategy equips public, private and nonprofit agencies, organizations and individuals with a roadmap for reducing preventable death, disease and disability in America. Hailed by public health leaders as a historic effort toward improving the nation’s health, the strategy will put a new focus on prevention, health promotion and wellness through federal policies and programs.
The nation’s new focus on prevention and health promotion will help Americans of all ages live healthier, longer lives.
Photo courtesy iStockphoto
“With this national strategy we are, for the first time as a nation, saying that we want to be one of the healthiest nations on the planet,” said APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E). “The National Prevention Strategy can be thought of as the blueprint for converting our approach to health from one which is sick care to one that is well care.”
In addition to creating the national strategy, the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council will provide coordination and leadership among all executive departments and agencies with respect to prevention, wellness and health promotion practices. Chaired by U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, the council brings together cabinet secretaries and top directors of 17 federal departments and agencies.
“It’s not just the health department that is involved now,” APHA’s Benjamin said. “This is really a look from the top at health in all policies — an attempt to get every part of our nation focused on health for all the places in which health intersects in our society.”
With its commitment, the council provides an “extraordinary opportunity to galvanize leadership to improve health,” said APHA member Michael Fraser, PhD, CEO of the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs.
“First, the cross-cutting nature of its membership assures that we are breaking down the silos that traditionally limit public health actions,” Fraser told The Nation’s Health. “Second, they will have the opportunity to advise on how to optimize the significant resources provided through the new Prevention and Public Health Fund. This group can help assure that we link strategic priorities and measurable outcomes like reducing infant mortality to actual investments in a way we’ve never done before.”
Also created through the health reform law, known as the Affordable Care Act, the Prevention and Public Health Fund provides for an expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health.
As part of its mandate, the council receives guidance from the public and other interested stakeholders. Additional guidance is provided through a non-federal advisory group appointed by President Barack Obama. Announced in January, the 13-member Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health includes APHA members Jonathan Fielding, MD, MPH, MBA, MA, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; Jeffrey Levi, PhD, MA, executive director of Trust for America’s Health; Linda Rosenstock, MD, MPH, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles; John Seffrin, PhD, MS, CEO of the American Cancer Society; and Susan Swider, PhD, MS, a professor in the College of Nursing at Rush University Medical Center.
In developing the national strategy, the council sought two rounds of public input on a draft framework. Hundreds of stakeholders contributed comments, including the public, community-based organizations and public- and private-sector practitioners engaged in prevention and wellness programs and activities. Input was also gathered through numerous outreach calls and regional and national meetings, including a session held during APHA’s 138th Annual Meeting in Denver in November.
About 300 written comments were received through the council’s website, said Andrew Rein, MS, associate director for policy at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We’ve gotten a wonderful range of comments — everything from individuals to health care providers to various organizations — whether they be advocacy or service organizations or representing groups of Americans interested in parts of health or prevention,” said Rein, who co-leads CDC’s efforts to assist the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council in developing the strategy.
APHA was among the many organizations to submit comments by the Jan. 18 deadline. Among its recommendations, the Association urged that the framework ensure accountability for expenditures as they relate to population health outcomes, as well as the creation and use of standards to guide both community and provider efforts in creating environments and services that detect and prevent disease and disability.
The National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy will be developed to align with other federal initiatives, such as Healthy People 2020, the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and Let’s Move!, the national child obesity campaign.
“While Healthy People 2020 establishes critical health objectives for the nation, the strategy will help provide a road map for achieving the objectives,” Jud Richland, MPH, president of Partnership for Prevention, told The Nation’s Health. “By formally engaging decision-makers in such diverse areas as education, housing and transportation, the National Prevention Strategy can coalesce diverse sectors of society to create a culture of wellness and prevention. In fact, our efforts to create a prevention culture cannot succeed without such a broad-based approach.”
The council’s work will not end with the delivery of the national strategy, said Janet Collins, PhD, CDC’s associate director for program.
“It really is envisioned to be a long-term council that continues to look at how the federal government itself can integrate its health prevention work more effectively and how it can help monitor and promote the use of the strategy for the nation,” Collins said. “So the release of the report is step one, (but) the activation of that plan around the country, and the monitoring of that plan and making sure we are producing the kinds of outputs that the plan envisions, is really going to be key.”
For more information, visit www.healthcare.gov/center/councils or e-mail prevention.council{at}hhs.gov.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
