As our leaders debate the merits of the public health provisions in the economic stimulus bill, one wonders how best to make the case for this important funding.
Health departments, local coalitions, associations and people like you have been writing letters to elected officials, speaking with local media and doing everything they can to explain why investing in public health makes sense. We’ve highlighted how prevention will save money, how the funds will create jobs and how they will allow more people access to important public health services during these difficult economic times.
But this isn’t enough. Despite all the evidence in support of these provisions, they are still in danger of being stripped out of the Senate’s version of the bill. So we need a new approach. Perhaps the problem is that we haven’t succeeded in telling the story of public health – we haven’t given a face to the many lives touched by our work.
We need to share our stories with our leaders and our communities. Share how your clinic has been inundated with people who have lost their insurance and need to see a doctor, but you don’t have the funds to meet demand. Share how your public education campaign resulted in record high numbers of people getting their flu shots. Share how you finally quit smoking after your state required your work to go smoke-free.
Whatever your story, share it. If our elected leaders are able to hear the real-life stories of the lives improved through public health, we might just have a chance to change some minds.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Obama gives public health a shout out
With the world’s eyes on D.C. this week, public health got a boost from none other than President Obama himself. The high-profile acknowledgement came during this week’s Youth Inaugural Ball, which was billed as a celebration of the role young people can play to serve their communities.
As he addressed the crowd, Obama said:
“We know that young people everywhere are in the process of imagining something different then what has come before. Where there is war they imagine peace, where there is hunger they imagine people being able to feed themselves, where there is disease they imagine a public health system that works for everybody, where they imagine bigotries they imagine togetherness.”
Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself (the quote starts at about the 3:00 mark)!
As we seek to impart the importance of public health to our nation’s health, it’s encouraging that millions of people heard our new president call for establishing an effective, comprehensive public health system – not a health care system, mind you – as a means of preventing disease!
What did you think Obama’s public health mention?
As he addressed the crowd, Obama said:
“We know that young people everywhere are in the process of imagining something different then what has come before. Where there is war they imagine peace, where there is hunger they imagine people being able to feed themselves, where there is disease they imagine a public health system that works for everybody, where they imagine bigotries they imagine togetherness.”
Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself (the quote starts at about the 3:00 mark)!
As we seek to impart the importance of public health to our nation’s health, it’s encouraging that millions of people heard our new president call for establishing an effective, comprehensive public health system – not a health care system, mind you – as a means of preventing disease!
What did you think Obama’s public health mention?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Calling for action
With D.C. gearing up for next week's inauguration, APHA has released a list of its public health priorities for the new Congress and administration.
These recommendations are part of NPHW efforts to urge our elected leaders to recognize the importance of public health as the foundation for a strong national health system that is able to address the many health challenges facing our nation.
Check them out here and then share your thoughts in the comments. What other legislative asks do you think the public health community should promote?
These recommendations are part of NPHW efforts to urge our elected leaders to recognize the importance of public health as the foundation for a strong national health system that is able to address the many health challenges facing our nation.
Check them out here and then share your thoughts in the comments. What other legislative asks do you think the public health community should promote?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
NPHW 2009 toolkit now available!
The "Building the Foundation for a Healthy America" toolkit is now available. The toolkit includes fact sheets, media outreach materials, suggested community events, legislative information and resources for everyone to use throughout NPHW. Start planning your NPHW event today!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Coming up short
Add this to the looming hurdles on the road to health reform: A recent Physicians’ Foundation survey of 12,000 doctors — mostly primary care physicians — found that half are planning to reduce their patient load or stop practicing altogether. Translation: When the health care doors open to the nation’s 45 million uninsured, will anyone be there to welcome them?
It’s a prediction complicated even more by a September study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed only 2 percent of graduating medical students are planning a career in general internal medicine, and an earlier Health Affairs study that predicted a primary care physician shortage of up to 44,000 by 2025.
The problem? Just take a look at Massachusetts. A couple years ago, the state passed sweeping health reform legislation resulting in near universal health coverage in the state. The downside? Not enough primary care doctors to see the hundreds of thousands of newly insured residents.
Pretty sobering. Primary care physicians, along with pediatricians, nurses and other primary care providers, are like the backbone of the health care delivery system, providing the regular check-ups, screenings, preventive advice and treatment that keep people healthy. Plus, the primary care provider is often the person that we learn to trust — something that can’t be overestimated when it comes to staying healthy.
So, what to do? Policy-makers at state and national levels have been working on legislation to beef up the primary care work force, with incentives such as loan repayments and scholarships for medical students and nurses willing to work in under-served communities. But with such massive shortages predicted, will that be enough?
Read more about the problem from AMA and let us know your thoughts.
P.S. Our country is also facing a major public health worker shortage. But since it’s the new year, I’ll stick to one piece of bad news at a time.
It’s a prediction complicated even more by a September study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed only 2 percent of graduating medical students are planning a career in general internal medicine, and an earlier Health Affairs study that predicted a primary care physician shortage of up to 44,000 by 2025.
The problem? Just take a look at Massachusetts. A couple years ago, the state passed sweeping health reform legislation resulting in near universal health coverage in the state. The downside? Not enough primary care doctors to see the hundreds of thousands of newly insured residents.
Pretty sobering. Primary care physicians, along with pediatricians, nurses and other primary care providers, are like the backbone of the health care delivery system, providing the regular check-ups, screenings, preventive advice and treatment that keep people healthy. Plus, the primary care provider is often the person that we learn to trust — something that can’t be overestimated when it comes to staying healthy.
So, what to do? Policy-makers at state and national levels have been working on legislation to beef up the primary care work force, with incentives such as loan repayments and scholarships for medical students and nurses willing to work in under-served communities. But with such massive shortages predicted, will that be enough?
Read more about the problem from AMA and let us know your thoughts.
P.S. Our country is also facing a major public health worker shortage. But since it’s the new year, I’ll stick to one piece of bad news at a time.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
What’s in a name?
Although Shakespeare tells us that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, when is comes to the semantics of health reform, is that really the case?
As our nation debates ways to improve the health of the public, what is primarily being discussed is universal health coverage. And this is usually encapsulated under the larger umbrella of health care reform, a term often used to describe the road to universal access to health services. You won’t find a Wikipedia entry for “health reform,” but there is one for “health care reform” and its definition focuses solely on the health care delivery system.
The problem with this situation? Although universal coverage and access to doctors are important, focusing on health care reform — instead of the broader concept of health reform — maintains the current emphasis on treating sickness and overlooks a much more cost-effective solution to improving health: prevention.
Calling it health care reform allows the emphasis to center on the medical care system and treatment of those already ill while failing to acknowledge the decades of research showing the importance of intervening on the social determinants of health and changing where we live, work, learn and play to support healthy behaviors.
So although health care reform has come to be used interchangeably with health reform, it’s essential that as we seek ways to improve health in America we don’t allow the focus to remain on the medical care system. We need to ensure that our leaders understand the importance of a health reform package built around the population-based strategies of public health.
This is a time when parsing words could make a monumental difference.
Share your thoughts on this issue. How important is it to you that our leaders move away from the language of health care reform?
As our nation debates ways to improve the health of the public, what is primarily being discussed is universal health coverage. And this is usually encapsulated under the larger umbrella of health care reform, a term often used to describe the road to universal access to health services. You won’t find a Wikipedia entry for “health reform,” but there is one for “health care reform” and its definition focuses solely on the health care delivery system.
The problem with this situation? Although universal coverage and access to doctors are important, focusing on health care reform — instead of the broader concept of health reform — maintains the current emphasis on treating sickness and overlooks a much more cost-effective solution to improving health: prevention.
Calling it health care reform allows the emphasis to center on the medical care system and treatment of those already ill while failing to acknowledge the decades of research showing the importance of intervening on the social determinants of health and changing where we live, work, learn and play to support healthy behaviors.
So although health care reform has come to be used interchangeably with health reform, it’s essential that as we seek ways to improve health in America we don’t allow the focus to remain on the medical care system. We need to ensure that our leaders understand the importance of a health reform package built around the population-based strategies of public health.
This is a time when parsing words could make a monumental difference.
Share your thoughts on this issue. How important is it to you that our leaders move away from the language of health care reform?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Now, the real work begins
Members of Congress are wasting little time bringing President-elect Barack Obama’s health reform promises into focus. Priorities are being tapped, leaders have been nominated and the often slowing-moving legislative ball is on an optimistic roll. Let’s just hope it gathers enough speed, support and forward-looking ideas to plug the growing hole that is the U.S. health care crisis.
Shortly after the November elections, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was chosen to lead a congressional working group tasked with developing the prevention and public health aspects of a national health reform bill, and late last week Harkin held a hearing on “Prevention and Public Health: The Key to Transforming Our Sick Care System.” At the hearing, Harkin thanked everyone for coming to “discuss why a new emphasis on prevention and strengthening our public health system are critical to transforming America’s health care system.”
“We need to improve the performance of our health care system,” Harkin said. “And we need to get health care costs under control. But those things will not happen unless we place a major new emphasis on wellness and disease prevention, while strengthening America’s public health system.”
(Hear that? That’s the sound of hundreds of thousands of public health workers breathing a sigh of relief as public health finally takes its rightful spot in the health reform debate. That other mumbling sound? Well, that’s also public health workers. If you listen closely, sentences start to form: “It’s about time.” “We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”)
Of course, the Harkin hearing is just the beginning. So start writing letters, e-mailing your ideas and reminding your congressional representatives of public health’s central role in better health, which is what 2009’s National Public Health Week is all about. For ideas on issues to mention, you can view APHA’s letter to Harkin our Web site.
You can also listen to the Harkin hearing. Also — and this is way cool — visit Obama’s Web site to post your comments about health reform for the transition team or to sign up to lead a health reform discussion in your home, community, local coffee shop, diner, church.......
And, of course, leave us your comments! How hopeful are you for public health’s future?
Shortly after the November elections, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, was chosen to lead a congressional working group tasked with developing the prevention and public health aspects of a national health reform bill, and late last week Harkin held a hearing on “Prevention and Public Health: The Key to Transforming Our Sick Care System.” At the hearing, Harkin thanked everyone for coming to “discuss why a new emphasis on prevention and strengthening our public health system are critical to transforming America’s health care system.”
“We need to improve the performance of our health care system,” Harkin said. “And we need to get health care costs under control. But those things will not happen unless we place a major new emphasis on wellness and disease prevention, while strengthening America’s public health system.”
(Hear that? That’s the sound of hundreds of thousands of public health workers breathing a sigh of relief as public health finally takes its rightful spot in the health reform debate. That other mumbling sound? Well, that’s also public health workers. If you listen closely, sentences start to form: “It’s about time.” “We still have a lot of work ahead of us.”)
Of course, the Harkin hearing is just the beginning. So start writing letters, e-mailing your ideas and reminding your congressional representatives of public health’s central role in better health, which is what 2009’s National Public Health Week is all about. For ideas on issues to mention, you can view APHA’s letter to Harkin our Web site.
You can also listen to the Harkin hearing. Also — and this is way cool — visit Obama’s Web site to post your comments about health reform for the transition team or to sign up to lead a health reform discussion in your home, community, local coffee shop, diner, church.......
And, of course, leave us your comments! How hopeful are you for public health’s future?
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