Update of Table 15.1
The table below shows the targets for different health indicators that focus on substance abuse, physical activities, and tobacco use among adults in the United States. It compares and updates data from the Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 reports.
Healthy People 2010 vs. Healthy People 2020 Objectives
The objectives of the Healthy People 2010 report and those of the Healthy People 2020 document both strive to promote societal wellbeing (Kindig, Asada, & Booske, 2008). Furthermore, both health assessment documents use the same health indicators to assess growth and trends in the accomplishment of health objectives in America. Nonetheless, there are some disparities in the objectives of Healthy People 2010 and those of Healthy People 2020. For example, the goal of Healthy People 2010 was to eliminate disparities in health (a distinct improvement from Healthy People 2000 objective, which was to reduce disparities), while the goal of Healthy People 2020 is to promote health equality (HealthyPeople.gov., 2012). This analysis shows a trend in the goals of Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020, which is marked by the need to not only eliminate disparities but also promote equality.
A look at the physical activity objectives of Healthy People 2020 shows an expansion of goals compared to those we saw in Healthy People 2010. Healthy People 2020 (within this category area of physical fitness) took a name change from “physical activity and fitness” to “physical activity.” According to the National Center for Health Statistics (2013), the motivation creating such a change was to increase consistency with America’s 2008 physical fitness guidelines. The new objectives strive to assess the aerobic physical activities of American adults and aim to paint a clearer picture of the influence of the existing policies on health and environmental factors on physical activities.
A look at the area of substance abuse between Healthy People 2010 objectives and those of Healthy People 2020 also affirms the same trend of broadening topic areas in health assessment, which we have seen in the areas of physical fitness and health care disparities. According to Kearney-Nunnery (2015), 31 new objectives were added to Healthy People 2020, compared to Healthy People 2010. The reasoning behind this adjustment is to reflect the changes that have occurred in the two decades of analysis (Shapiro, Mostashari, Hripcsak, Soulakis, & Kuperman, 2011).
Some data considerations have also informed the change in the sense that data for substance abuse, used to assess tobacco smoking among American adults, have traditionally come from the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS), which is mostly used by states. The national data comes from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) (Kearney-Nunnery, 2015). The changes in objectives between Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 partly come from the fact that NHIS data were the main basis for setting the goals of Healthy People 2020 (HealthyPeople.gov., 2012). A comprehensive review of the trends and objectives of Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 reveals that education and income were the primary basis for the formulation of the Healthy People 2010 document. The goals of Healthy People 2020 were formulated from the understanding that household income affected socioeconomic status before the computation of taxes (Kearney-Nunnery, 2015).
Reliability of Data
A look at the physical activity data used to revise the objectives of Healthy People 2020, viz-a-viz those of Healthy People 2010, shows that we could rely on the data used to formulate the reports because it is evidence-based (Shi & Johnson, 2014). Here, there is a push to meet the federally accepted physical activity guidelines, which only adds to improving the consistency of data across the spheres of analysis (Pavlin et al., 2014). The federally accepted physical activity guidelines are aerobic physical activity, muscle-strengthening activity, and a combination of aerobic physical activity and muscle-strengthening physical activities (Shi & Johnson, 2014). Galvan, Davis, Banks, and Bing (2008) say the trend towards having reliable and nationally accepted guidelines and data assessment measurements cannot be overstated.
An assessment of data on substance abuse and tobacco smoking in the US also shows consistency in measurement across the Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 platforms. The reliance on evidence-based data and measurability are key factors that have remained constant throughout the two health documents. The same is true for alcohol abuse and binge drinking because the measurement and reliability of the data are consistent throughout Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 reports. Broadly, the data used in Healthy People 2010 and Healthy People 2020 are reliable and measurable because they are based on scientific guidelines of data analysis.
References
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HealthyPeople.gov. (2012). DATA 2020, the Healthy People 2020 interactive data tool. Web.
Kearney-Nunnery, R. (2015). Advancing your career concepts in professional nursing. New York, NY: F.A. Davis.
Kindig, D., Asada, Y., & Booske, B. (2008). A population health framework for setting national and state health goals. Journal of the American Medical Association, 299(17), 2081–2083.
National Center for Health Statistics. (2013). Healthy People 2010: Final Review. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
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