Access to quality healthcare services; injury rates; physical and social environments and incidences of chronic disease are among the major immediate health concerns that the Department of Health and Human Services should focus on over the next ten years, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends.
The IOM’s suggestions come as HHS gears up for its Healthy People 2020 initiative, which sets population health improvement targets for the next decade. Other measures the IOM suggested include mental health; responsible sexual behavior; substance abuse; tobacco use and healthy births.
The IOM report updates and expands on the 10 leading health indicators that were prioritized for the Healthy People 2010 initiative. The indicators, selected by a committee of population health experts, epidemiologists, health statisticians and others, provide yardsticks that can be used to help measure the nation's health.
"This report's recommendations will help policymakers and health professionals at the national and local levels focus their actions aimed at achieving the Healthy People 2020 goals," said IOM committee chair David Nerenz, director, Center for Health Services Research, and director of outcomes research, Neuroscience Institute, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit.
The indicators are accompanied by 24 objectives, which include:
- increasing the proportion of people with a usual primary care provider
- increasing the proportion of people who receive appropriate evidence‑based clinical preventive services
- reducing the overall cancer death rate; reducing central‑line‑associated bloodstream infections
- improving the health literacy of the population
- reducing coronary heart disease deaths
- reducing the proportion of obese children and adolescents.
For more information:
- Review the IOM report brief
- Visit the Healthy People 2020 website
- Check out this Los Angeles Times report
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