Healthy People 2020: A Road Map for Health

Treating chronic diseases and conditions accounts for more than 75 percent of the nation’s health care costs. Other often preventable conditions—such as complications with pre-term babies and certain injuries—also add to the nation’s health care bill. States have initiated various policies and are considering even more to prevent diseases and promote better health among residents. These include a range of healthy lifestyles policies from requiring physical education in schools and funding community walking trails to allowing employers to provide wellness programs to employees and give insurance discounts for adopting healthy behaviors and helping smokers quit. A new tool to help state policymakers identify problem areas and craft solutions is the “Healthy People 2020” road map, a 10-year national agenda aimed at improving the health of all Americans.

The 2020 Healthy People initiative builds on the past three decades of the program. Using reliable data and scientific evidence, a workgroup—composed of members of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, with input from many groups and individuals—prioritized the major health issues and developed the national framework.

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