Twentieth Meeting: June 30, 2011

Secretary’s Advisory Committee on
National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020

Committee Recommendations (Approved by Vote)

• Members who were present voted unanimously to approve the 14 Leading Health Indicators topic areas proposed by the LHI Subcommittee.
• Members who were present voted unanimously to approve the indicators within each of the topics.
• For the indicator, “Reduce food insecurity,” under the topic of Healthy and Active Lifestyle, the members recommended retaining the current phrasing, but suggested that HHS consider revising the phrase to be more inspirational (e.g., “increase food security”).
• All members who were present voted unanimously to approve three additional recommendations for developing and using LHIs that had been proposed by the Subcommittee:
• Each LHI should be analyzed for disparities, health equity, and age. A continuous analysis of Healthy People 2020 Foundation Health Measures is needed.
• HHS should be encouraged to develop multi-measure health indices.
• HHS should be encouraged to create an overarching measure of health.

Next Steps

• NORC will send out information about the data collection initiative for minority groups.
• The Committee’s Final Report on the LHIs for Healthy People 2020 will be circulated to the Committee for final revision in keeping with the Committee’s discussion, and then submitted to the Secretary.

I. Welcome and Desired Outcomes of the Meeting

Dr. Shrike Kumanyika, Vice-Chair of the Committee, welcomed the Committee members and thanked them for their contributions to the development of Healthy People 2020. She informed the group that Dr. Fielding was unable to participate due to a scheduling conflict, but might join the later. Dr. Kumanyika explained that the main focus of the meeting would be to review, discuss, and vote on the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator (LHIs) recommendations that had been put forth by the Subcommittee. The recommendations would be submitted to the Secretary after the meeting. Members would also hear updates from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) on the timeline for releasing a set of LHIs, as well as the other Healthy People 2020 implementation activities.

Dr. Kumanyika provided background on the purpose and function of the LHIs. The LHIs are a set of measures that is released every decade to track the health status of the nation and progress of Healthy People in improving the health of Americans. LHI’s have been used to focus on a small number of social and health issues. They also play an important role in: communicating about the national health objectives to the public; motivating action; and providing feedback on the progress towards achieving those goals.

At the April 13th meeting of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Objectives for 2020 (the Committee), ODPHP charged the Committee with developing recommendations for a set of LHIs for Healthy People 2020. The Committee heard from Dr. David Nerenz, who had chaired the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020, which recently released recommendations for a set of LHIs. Since then, a Subcommittee on LHIs was convened and consulted with outside experts to develop the a set of LHI recommendations.