Healthy People 2030 charts new course for nation: Newest edition shares 355 measurable, streamlined objectives
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* Mark Barna

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/https://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/50/8/1.3/F1.medium.gif)

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In August, Orlando Miranda, left, and his sons — Osvaldo Miranda and Carlos Luna — spend time outdoors playing in a stream in Lytle Creek, California. Healthy People 2030, released in August, sets objectives aimed at helping people in the U.S. live healthier lives, including improvements to air and water quality, physical activity and other health measures.

Photo by Irfan Khan, courtesy Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

With the much-anticipated launch of the 2030 edition of Healthy People this summer, public health leaders have a new, comprehensive resource to guide their work to improve and protect the health of their communities.

Healthy People 2030 kicked off Aug. 18 with refined measures and new programs, strategies and focus. It features 355 measurable, streamlined objectives — down from more than 1,000 in the last edition — with 10-year targets, including new goals related to opioid use disorder, flavored tobacco and e-cigarette use.

“What gets measured gets done,” said APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, in a news release heralding the launch. “For decades, Healthy People measures have pointed the way to becoming a healthier nation through health promotion and disease prevention. Healthy People 2030 will set the stage through the next decade and serve as the official benchmark for progress.”

The Healthy People initiative, coordinated by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is aligned with the nation’s most important public health priorities and challenges. It supports health improvements by setting objectives for the nation to meet over the next decade on specific health issues, then tracks work and shares efforts that are most effective. State and local health workers use Healthy People objectives as a benchmark to learn how their communities measure up and set goals for communities.

Keeping up with changes in the public health field, Healthy People 2030 places a stronger emphasis on well-being and social determinants of health. Healthy People 2030 builds on its predecessor, giving even more consideration to social determinants of health and health equity. Given the health inequities that have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and the greater attention to racial and social justice, the new focus is especially needed, supporters said.

“Healthy People 2030 deliberately calls out current and historical racism, injustice and other forms of discrimination as root causes of poor health, and recognizes that until those factors are addressed, health disparities will persist,” Mary Pittman, DrPH, president and CEO of the Public Health Institute, told *The Nation’s Health.* “It is a beacon for where we need to be heading, with clear, measurable goals that can address, ameliorate and eliminate some of the systemic conditions that are causing needless suffering, injustice and death.”

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Image courtesy Healthy People 2030

One of the many ways Healthy People helps public health workers is by tracking where the nation has made progress. Under Healthy People 2020, measurable improvements were tracked in reducing tobacco smoking, hypertension, cholesterol and death rates from heart disease and cancer. Objectives were met on several fronts, such as having fewer than 47% of children exposed to secondhand smoke. Since the launch of Healthy People, cancer cases in the U.S. have dropped by 30%.

“Healthy People 2020 did a deep dive into social determinants and this whole notion of inequities and metrics related to inequity, which is very laudable,” Anthony Iton, MD, JD, MPH, senior vice president for healthy communities at the California Endowment, told *The Nation’s Health.* “Doing the research and scientific inquiry to illustrate the strength of these factors is important.”

Health advocates can use Healthy People 2030 by first identifying the health needs of their community, Paul Reed, MD, deputy assistant secretary for health and acting director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, told *The Nation’s Health.*

For example, using data and resources from Healthy People 2020, health advocates were able to increase colorectal cancer screenings in New York, bring about fewer complications during pregnancy in Georgia, and reduce the number of people smoking in Minnesota, Reed said. In each case, advocates chose the priority health issues for those states and applied the metrics of Healthy People 2020 as benchmarks.

The launch of Healthy People 2030 was originally slated for March, but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the outbreak, organizers have highlighted and shared a set of objectives that are most relevant to meeting developing health needs.

> “What Healthy People 2030 has done is to help focus the conversation by identifying metrics that matter, which ultimately helps lead to action and improvement.”
> 
> — Nirav Shah

One such objective is increasing broadband internet access, which has become even more important as people work and study remotely during the pandemic. Students in families that cannot afford high-speed internet are at an educational disadvantage that could affect their lifelong earning potential, which impacts health.

“While folks have known about the importance of the social determinants of health, what Healthy People 2030 has done is to help focus the conversation by identifying metrics that matter, which ultimately helps lead to action and improvement,” Nirav Shah, MD, MPH, a senior scholar at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center and member of the Healthy People advisory committee, told *The Nation’s Health.*

Healthy People 2030 approaches social determinants through education access and quality, economic stability, social and community context, neighborhood and built environment, and health care access and quality.

## Website offers fast, updated access

Thanks to a revamped website, Healthy People 2030 is easy to search and navigate. The site offers a database of evidence-based resources that demonstrate strategies relevant to each objective, and the ability to reference and toggle between past and current objectives.

In addition, the website will have more national health data that is updated as available, thanks to a partnership between the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Updates to data under Healthy People 2030 will happen at a speed exponentially faster than for past editions. While Healthy People 2020 was updated two to three times a year with new data, Healthy People 2030 will be updated as soon as new information becomes available, Brian Moyer, PhD, MA, director of the National Center for Health Statistics, said during a Healthy People 2030 launch event. State population, demographic and health disparities data are being added to the objectives on the site.

Still on the horizon for Healthy People 2030 is the release of its Leading Health Indicators. The indicators, which are expected to be shared this fall, are a select set of objectives on high-priority health issues and challenges. While all of Healthy People 2030’s objectives are important, the Leading Health Indicators are chosen to draw attention to those that have the highest potential for impact. Healthy People 2020 had 26 Leading Health Indicators, highlighting issues such as health insurance coverage, obesity, infant deaths and air quality.

Achieving the hundreds of objectives set in Healthy People 2030 will require partnerships at all levels and across all sectors, noted U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, MD.

“More than ever, strengthening health and prosperity is a shared responsibility,” Adams said during the launch event. “With the plan of action described in Healthy People 2030, we can continue developing meaningful and sustainable partnerships that will help us integrate diverse perspectives into policy formation, public health decisionmaking and community development.”

Dushanka Kleinman, DDS, MSeD, co-chair of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2030, also called for wider engagement beyond the public health sector.

“Investments in the practice and ongoing engagement of diverse stakeholders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors at all levels will be needed,” Kleinman told *The Nation’s Health.* “We cannot do this in the public health sector alone. We need to engage both traditional and new stakeholders — sectors such as business, education, transportation, housing. We also need to expand involvement of groups within the health and health care sectors.”

Forward-thinking laws and policies are needed to improve health equity, according to Iton, co-author of a new book on advocacy published by APHA Press in September.

“We have to organize communities to participate in reshaping our policy priorities, and that is what gets controversial in public health, but that is what is needed,” he said.

Healthy People 2030 leaders will take a closer look at the new edition and share information on its updates during sessions at APHA’s 2020 Annual Meeting and Expo in October. On Sunday, Oct. 25, a full-day virtual Learning Institute course will explore Healthy People 2030 objectives on violence prevention. To register for APHA 2020, visit [www.apha.org/annual-meeting](http://www.apha.org/annual-meeting).

For more on Healthy People 2030, visit [www.healthypeople.gov](http://www.healthypeople.gov).

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*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association