Healthy People 2020
In 1979, the Surgeon General’s Report, Healthy People: The Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention was published. This semi- nal report was followed by Healthy People 1990: Promoting Health/Preventing Disease: Objectives for the Nation—a series of concrete objectives for addressing national public health issues. A decade later, this document was followed by Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objec- tives. These early documents presented the initiative for a national strategy for significantly improving the health of the American people in the decades preced- ing 2000 and the decades to follow. The documents recognized that lifestyle and environmental factors are major determinants in disease prevention and health promotion. They provided strategies for significantly reducing preventable death and disability, for enhancing quality of life, and for reducing disparities in health status among various population groups within our society. Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Objectives was a state- ment of national opportunities, and was followed by Healthy People 2010 that was adjusted to continue in this trajectory; Healthy People 2020, released in early 2011, has been designed to continue this momentum.
The Healthy People series provides science-based, 10-year national objec- tives for improving the health of all Americans. Over the past decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress in order to