The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released Healthy People 2030, a plan that sets data-driven objectives for addressing the Nation’s most critical public health priorities.
Every 10 years, ODPHP publishes a framework of goals and objectives for preventing disease and promoting the health of all Americans. Healthy People 2030 includes fewer objectives and higher data standards than previous versions while still addressing emerging health issues such as opioid use disorder, adolescents’ use of e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco, and COVID-19. Healthy People 2030 places greater emphasis on the social determinants of health and prioritizes economic stability, education access and quality, health care access and quality, and understanding how built environments as well as social and community contexts influence health. Healthy People 2030 also focuses on mitigating health disparities and improving health equity and health literacy.
The new Healthy People 2030 website incorporates many useful features, including the Custom List tool, which enables users to build and track a list of Healthy People 2030 objectives relevant to their work; a new application programming interface that supports faster data releases from ODPHP and its data partner, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); evidence-based resources that detail proven strategies to improve health; improved search capacities; and intuitive user interfaces.
The Healthy People initiative began in response to Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (U.S. Public Health Service, 1979). Since the initiative began, the United States has seen declines in major causes of death, such as heart disease and cancer, as well as in risk factors such as tobacco smoking, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol. More information on the history of the initiative is available here.
Visit the Healthy People 2030 website for more information, and sign up for email updates to learn when new tools and information are added to the website.