Objectives for the Nation

The United States government has attempted to reorganize the health care system and focus the attention of the American people on programs that promote health and prevent disease. In 1980 it published Promoting Health! Preventing Disease. This list of health objectives for the nation sets a series of goals that are to be at­tained by 1990.

You know from personal experience that if you want to reach goals, you have to be realistic when setting them. Let's say you decide you want to get in shape by walking 4 miles three times a week. Because you haven't exercised for a while, you begin by getting a physical. Then you set realistic goals when you begin your program— Vi mile the first few times, 1 mile the next few times—building up to 4 miles in three or four weeks. If you don't set such goals, you'll probably try to do too much at first, get tired, and give up.

In setting its health objectives, the govern­ment tried to be realistic. It couldn't expect every American to give up smoking, cut down on salt, or change other harmful habits by the year 1990. But it could expect a certain number to have changed their life style in significant ways by then.

Promoting Health I Preventing Disease fo­cuses on 15 priority areas. Each area is con­cerned with a particular health problem.

The 15 areas on which the government chose to focus its efforts are the following:

1. smoking

2. alcohol and drugs

3. nutrition

4. physical fitness and exercise

5. control of stress and violent behavior

6. high blood pressure

7. family planning

8. pregnancy andinfant health

9. immunization

10. sexually transmitted diseases

11. toxic substances

12. occupational safety and health

13. accident prevention and injurycontrol

14. fluoridation and dental health

15. control of infectious diseases

For each area, Promoting Health I Preventing Disease explains the nature and extent of the problem. It then suggests specific disease-pre­venting and health-promoting measures and states the objectives to be attained by 1990. In the case of alcohol and drugs, for example, one of its suggestions is to introduce nationwide educational programs that will result in a reduc­tion of the number of automobile accidents that involve the use of alcohol. It provides a specific goal: to bring the number of deaths involving drunk drivers down to 9.5 per 100,000 people.

In 1975 there were 11.5 deaths involving drunk drivers per 100,000 people.

The government emphasizes the need for ac­tion by Americans in all walks of life. In par­ticular, it calls upon industry and labor, schools, churches, and consumer groups to play an active role in promoting health. Health pro­fessionals can do only so much. They need the voluntary cooperation of community organiza­tions if they are to carry out their functions.

Consider the nation's immunization prog­rams, for example. Health professionals have the capability and equipment to immunize all Americans against a variety of life-threatening diseases. Yet every year, Americans die from these diseases because they never received the immunizations. Health professionals can't visit every home to provide the immunizations. They have to rely on individuals coming to them. Schools and employers can help. They can in­form people of the value of immunizations and encourage individuals to take advantage of them. In some cases, the services can be pro­vided at school or at work.

Action at the individual level, then, remains an important key to a healthy nation. There is much that each one of us can do to promote our own health and that of the society we live in. In this book, you'll learn to help yourself and, by so doing, to help the nation attain the gov­ernment's health objectives by 1990.