Healthy Communities:  New Opportunities for Promoting Health

Americans are plagued by chronic health conditions that continue to increase the nation’s health care costs and may lead the current generation of young people to live sicker and die younger than their parents. Chronic conditions, often preventable, account for more than 75 percent of U.S. health care costs, but 95 percent of health care dollars go to treating diseases and injuries after they occur. Physical inactivity, poor diet and risky behaviors—along with social and environmental factors such as low income, limited education, poor housing, lack of neighborhood safety, and toxic exposures—account for between 60 percent and 70 percent of premature deaths.

Federal health reform includes a Prevention and Public Health Fund (Sec. 4002). Appropriated $500 million for FY 2010, the fund is evenly split for training new primary care providers (who frequently deliver preventive services to patients) and a $250 million investment in prevention and public health infrastructure.