MESSAGE FROM THE ODPHP ACTING DIRECTOR

As many of you know, Randy Wykoff recently left his position as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and Director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) to assume responsibility for international health operations at Project Hope. All of us in public health owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Wykoff for his leadership of Healthy People 2010 and other crucial efforts, such as the expansion of the healthfinder® Web site to reach populations with increased health needs and the establishment of the microfinance community implementation grants aimed at improving prevention efforts at the local level. Dr. Wykoff’s commitment to the health of all Americans was evident in all he did.

I am honored to follow Dr. Wykoff as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. I have had the good fortune to work with many parts of the Department in the past few months as a Special Assistant to HHS’s Deputy Chief of Staff. My 11 years of experience in disease prevention and health promotion have been gained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and I have enjoyed the new opportunity to work with all of the HHS agencies and their partners this year.

In my new position, I will be leading two key initiatives for Secretary Thompson—the President’s HealthierUS and the Secretary’s Prevention Initiative: Steps to a Healthier US. Together, these initiatives focus both on preventing disease by addressing major risk factors (such as physical inactivity and poor nutrition) and on reducing the burden of disease through appropriate health screenings and prevention of secondary conditions. The Secretary’s initiative will have a special emphasis on diabetes, obesity, and asthma. For more information about HealthierUS, see the article in this newsletter.

It is an honor for all of us who dedicate our lives to prevention to count among our ranks the President of the United States and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Their initiatives will be an integral part of ODPHP and will move us closer to achieving the goals set in Healthy People 2010.

A happy, healthy New Year to you all.

Elizabeth Majestic, M.S., M.P.H.
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health
(Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)

HealthierUS: The President’s Health and Fitness Initiative

HealthierUS is a White House initiative launched with the President's Executive Order 13266 — Activities to Promote Personal Fitness — on June 20, 2002. The aim of HealthierUS is to empower all Americans with the knowledge, motivation, and skills they need to make healthy choices; improve government policies and services to help provide the American people with an environment that supports healthy choices; and increase collaboration among the Federal government, states, communities, and the private sector to ensure that the American people receive disease prevention and health promotion services that are effective and efficient.

The order establishes a Personal Fitness Interagency Working Group, headed up by HHS to provide a government-wide perspective on the efforts of Federal agencies to improve the health and fitness of the American people and make recommendations for strengthening these activities.

Departments and Agencies represented in the Personal Fitness Interagency Working Group include:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Defense
Department of Interior
Department of Education
Department of Labor
Environmental Protection Agency
General Services Administration
Housing and Urban Development
Veterans Affairs
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Department of Health and Human Services (leads the initiative)

Contact for HealthierUS:
Chris Dobday, special coordinator for HealthierUS, CDC/Washington office: cdobday@aol.com (202) 690-8598.

Steps to a HealthierUS: Putting Prevention First

The national summit, Steps to a HealthierUS: Putting Prevention First, will focus attention on the urgency of prevention and on promising approaches for tackling key challenges. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson has been invited to lay out his priorities and programs for Steps to a HealthierUS, the Department's initiative to advance the President's HealthierUS Initiative.

The summit, slated for April 15 - 16, 2003, in Baltimore, Maryland, will highlight policies that promote healthy environments; health promotion programs that work in schools, worksites, and other community settings; healthcare settings that have incorporated quality preventive health care as a standard practice; health communication messages that are effective with different population groups; and uses of Healthy People 2010 as the cornerstone for planning efforts. The meeting will bring together community organizations, businesses, health departments, healthcare providers, the insurance industry, policy- and decision-makers, government officials, legislators and Congressional staff.

Registration prior to April 1, 2003, is encouraged. To register online go to http://www.healthypeople.gov. The registration fee is $185. For more information about the Steps to a HealthierUS Summit, which will be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, contact Nancy Stanisic at 202-260-3601 or nstanisic@osophs.dhhs.gov.

Healthy People Steering Committee

At its December, 2002, meeting, the Steering Committee considered several issues key to the continued implementation of Healthy People 2010. The committee began discussions of the parameters of the midcourse review – work on which is expected to begin in 2004 and be completed in 2005. The committee also considered approaches to increase effective communication of the Leading Health Indicators, including drawing on the experiences of communities, states, and health professionals, among others; and it continued its examination of how to measure progress toward achieving one of the two overarching goals of Healthy People 2010 – the elimination of health disparities.

After Steering Committee review of proposed baseline data and targets, an objective from Focus Area 11, Health Communication, was moved from developmental to measurable status. That objective (1-6. Increase the proportion of persons who report that their health care providers have satisfactory communication skills) includes four subobjectives. The baselines and targets for the objective can be found at the National Center for Health Statistics DATA2010 Web site http://wonder.cdc.gov/data2010/.

State Coordinators Meeting

The State Healthy People Coordinators "are the people who make Healthy People happen — every single day," Assistant Secretary for Health Eve E. Slater, M.D., F.A.C.C., told participants of a meeting of State Healthy People Coordinators December 3, 2002, in Washington, DC.

Healthy People Coordinators from 43 States, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, met to share their experiences and expertise in implementing Healthy People 2010. Also attending the meeting were the Regional Health Administrators from each of the 10 Public Health Service regions, representatives from HHS agencies and offices, Healthy People focus area work group coordinators, Steering Committee members, Consortium members, and a delegation of health officials from Peru.

Convened by ODPHP, this first-ever Healthy People State Coordinators meeting provided an opportunity to strengthen relationships and enhance channels of communication; identify challenges and opportunities; and impact the use of Healthy People objectives and the Leading Health Indicators at the regional, state, and local levels.

State Coordinators from Arizona, Alabama, Iowa, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Delaware presented on the integration of Healthy People 2010 in their state action plans. Each state offered a comprehensive plan, all different but yet similar in some ways due to their direct linkage to Healthy People 2010.

More than half of the states, including Puerto Rico, have already released their Healthy People 2010 state action plans. They have built on the national framework presented in Healthy People 2010 and have adapted the objectives to address their specific local needs.

Health Promotion Forum in Chile

Healthy People 2010 was the topic of U.S. Surgeon General Richard S. Carmona’s, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S., plenary presentation at the “Health Promotion Forum of the Americas,” held in Santiago, Chile, October 20 - 24, 2002. Dr. Carmona, who led the US representation to the meeting, also highlighted the Leading Health Indicators, national priority areas and new initiatives, such as the President’s HealthierUS.

ODPHP Deputy Director for External Affairs Matthew Guidry, Ph.D., accompanied Dr. Carmona as a member of the US representation. During his presentation to the forum participants, Dr. Guidry emphasized the important role Healthy People 2010 can play in helping to set disease prevention and health promotion priorities in a global perspective. He noted that the priorities identified in Healthy People 2010 are consistent and compatible with global health issues and priorities. The Healthy People format sets the stage for significant international and global cooperation, he added.

Several countries — including Egypt, Uruguay, and Indonesia — have used Healthy People 2010 as the foundation for planning and implementing their national disease prevention and health promotion initiatives. Other countries have consulted with ODPHP staff on developing plans modeled after Healthy People.

Focus Area Progress Reviews

Disability and Secondary Conditions will be the topic of the upcoming Healthy People 2010 focus area progress review, scheduled for January 15, 2003. The review on Food Safety is slated for February 19, 2003. The progress reviews—chaired by Assistant Secretary for Health Eve E. Slater, M.D., F.A.C.C.—provide a venue for federal agencies to report on progress toward achieving the Healthy People 2010 goals and objectives. These sessions provide the opportunity for discussion about implementation challenges, barriers, strategies, and best practices.

A summary and materials from previous progress reviews — Access to Quality Health Services; Arthritis, Osteoporosis, and Chronic Back Conditions; Cancer; Chronic Kidney Disease; and Diabetes — are available on ODPHP’s Healthy People Web site at www.healthypeople.gov and the National Center for Health Statistics' Web site at http://cdc.gov/nchs. For more information about Healthy People 2010 progress reviews, contact Carter Blakey at 202-205-2317 or cblakey@osophs.dhhs.gov.

Healthy People 2010 Partners Meeting

Assistant Secretary for Health Eve E. Slater, M.D., F.A.C.C., presented an award of appreciation to each of the organizations that has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department in support of Healthy People 2010. Dr. Slater made the presentations at a meeting of the 11 health-related organizations that have either signed MOUs or passed resolutions in support of achieving the goals and objectives of Healthy People 2010 and the Leading Health Indicators. The 11 partner organizations included the Academy of General Dentistry, American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, American Medical Association, American Optometric Association, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, National Recreation and Parks Association, Rosalynn Carter Institute, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

ODPHP sponsored the one-day meeting, held September 25, 2002, at the National Institutes of Health’s Bethesda campus. The session provided a forum for exchanging views on three key topics: each organization’s motivation for engaging in the MOU with HHS; benefits realized or expected from the MOU; and the ways in which the partnership has enhanced, or will enhance, common goals related to disease prevention and health promotion, Healthy People 2010, and the Leading Health Indicators, especially among the organization’s members.

Healthy People Partnership with American Optometric Association

The American Optometric Association (AOA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with HHS to further the goals of Healthy People 2010. AOA represents more than 33,000 doctors of optometry practicing in more than 6,600 communities across the country. Principal among the association's several missions is to improve the quality and availability of eye and vision care for all Americans.

Assistant Secretary for Health Eve E. Slater, M.D., F.A.C.C., will be the keynote speaker at AOA’s annual leadership conference on January 24, 2003.

AOA has a long history of involvement with Healthy People:

Beginning in 1978, AOA worked to include vision objectives into Healthy People documents. Focus Area 28, which addresses vision objectives, was added to Healthy People 2010.

AOA's Public Health and Disease Prevention Committee has worked with state affiliates to encourage the appointment of optometrists as consultants to state Healthy People coordinators. They share information and work with theses offices to help implement the vision objectives.

In September 2002, AOA sponsored “Healthy Eyes, Healthy People,” a national meeting that brought together all state association presidents and executive directors, as well as optometrists who are consultants to the state Healthy People program. Featured speakers included Jane Wilson, Region VIII’s Deputy Regional Health Administrator, as well as Tom Sims, the West Virginia state Healthy People coordinator, and Rosemary Janiszewski from the National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute.

Healthy People Consortium

The National Urban League, the Nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream, is the newest member of the Healthy People Consortium.

The Healthy People Consortium is an alliance of more than 600 national membership organizations and state agencies committed to supporting the Healthy People goals and objectives. For more information about the Consortium, contact Nancy Stanisic, ODPHP Healthy People Consortium Coordinator, at 202-260-3601 or nstanisic@osophs.dhhs.gov.

Microfinance Community Grants

Virtually every Healthy People 2010 focus area is addressed by the Community Implementation Micro-Grants funded under a pilot program supported by ODPHP. This grant program provides small amounts of money ($2,010), through two intermediary organizations, to a wide variety of local, community-based organizations to assist them in conducting one or more activities related to Healthy People 2010 and the Leading Health Indicators.

The two intermediaries are: Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, which has made 103 local awards across Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bridgeport, Derby, Hartford, Naugatuck, New Haven, Oxford, Seymour, and Shelton areas of Connecticut; and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, Office of Healthy Carolinians/Health Education, which has made 199 awards in approximately 40 of its Healthy Carolinians sites across the state. Together the intermediaries received a total of $1.1 million to conduct the local selection and awarding of the funds to community-based organizations.

A broad spectrum of organizations is represented among the grantees, including health and human service organizations; schools; faith-based groups; community organizations; and civic and governmental organizations.

Under this program, seed money is provided to local, non-profit organizations to begin or continue efforts that support the two overarching goals of Healthy People 2010 — to increase the quality and years of healthy life and to eliminate health disparities — through local implementation of Healthy People 2010. The aim of the program is to encourage community health promotion efforts and link them to the larger, national health goals and objectives identified in Healthy People 2010. By developing catalysts in communities to improve the quality of life of residents, progress will be made toward improving the quality of life for the entire Nation.

Companion Documents and Resources

Several measures relating to Healthy People 2010 objectives are addressed in a report recently released by The Family Planning Councils of America, Inc. (FPCA). The document, Family Planning Performance Measurement System, Phase II Final Report, reports on a system that represents the culmination of a three-year effort to define performance measures for Title X grantees and provider sites. The performance system is intended to monitor and document the achievements of family planning providers, as well as evaluate the program effectiveness and impact. Among the public and private funders of the project was the HHS Public Health Service Office of Population Affairs. For more information or to receive a copy of the report, please contact the project manager: Natalie Tobier, Medical and Health Research Association of NYC, Inc. (MHRA), 40 Worth Street, Room 720, New York, New York 10013, ntobier@mhra.org.

Meetings, Awards, and Other News

The Nation’s Leading Health Indicators: Measuring Progress, Taking Action is topic of Grantmakers in Health Annual Meeting on Health Philanthropy, February 19-21, 2003, in Los Angeles, California. For more information about the meeting visit www.gih.org.

The 2002 C. Everett Koop National Health Award winners are Hawaii Medical Service Association for its program called Health Pass; Motorola for its Global Wellness Initiatives; and FedEx Express for Health Risk Reduction & Cost Reduction Programs. The National Health Award, named in honor of the Nation’s former Surgeon General and hosted by The Health Project, is given each year to worksite, community, or provider programs that have soundly demonstrated health promotion and disease prevention that meet the highest standards of positive health outcomes and economic value. For more information about The Health Project and the next cycle of awards, contact Willis Goldbeck at 703-684-5880 or goldbeck@aol.com.

CDC’s National Immunization Program has reached its Healthy People 2010 goal of 90 percent for Hepatitis B vaccine coverage among children, as specified in Focus Area 14, Immunization and Infectious Diseases objective 14-22c.

In support of the Department’s elimination of disparities effort and Goal 2 of Healthy People 2010, CDC plans to conduct two-year demonstration projects to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in adult influenza and pneumococcal vaccination coverage for people age 65 years and older. In carrying out the project, called Racial and Ethnic Adult Disparities Immunization Initiative (READII), CDC will work with five demonstration sites to improve influenza and pneumoccocal vaccination rates in African-American and Hispanic communities. These sites are: Rochester, NY; Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI; San Antonio, TX; and rural counties in Mississippi. The sites will organize partnerships of public health professionals, medical providers and community organizations (e.g., large health plans, insurers, minority health professional organizations, churches, local community groups, and civic leaders) to develop a community-based plan. These two-year plans will focus on the use of evidence-based interventions and the involvement of community partners, with careful and thorough evaluation.

For more information about Healthy People, visit ODPHP’s Healthy People Web site at www.healthypeople.gov. The most recent data for the Healthy People 2010 objectives can be found at the National Center for Health Statistics' DATA2010 Web site at http://wonder.cdc.gov/data2010.