Editor in chief Lloyd F. Novick highlights new articles in the September/October 2022 issues of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice.

This September issue of the Journal of Public Health Practice and Management contains a special section “Health Equity in Healthy People 2030.” A commentary by Bishop and Reed points to the long-standing systemic inequities resulting in the socially and economically disadvantaged having poor health outcomes. The 1985 “Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health,” commonly known as the Heckler Report, resulted in the inclusion of health disparities and achieving health equity as priorities for the Healthy People initiative, the nation’s 10-year health agenda. The authors recommend the universal adoption of the Healthy People 2030 definition of health equity: “The attainment of the highest level of health for all people.” This requires a common baseline with an established set of goals and benchmarks. This must be coupled with a measurement system that informs our progress.

Two scientific articles in this section by Hoyer and colleagues focus on how Healthy People 2030 emphasizes and measures health equity. Healthy People shows how specific population groups perform on the 10-year objectives, including leading health indicators that track health behaviors and determinants of health. The data at the end of Healthy People 2020 showed that the health status of people varied by who they are, where and how they lived, and the community where they were born. Healthy People 2030 will continue to work toward the goal of achieving health equity by providing resources and tools to the field of public health. By monitoring progress toward the Healthy People 2030 objectives, communities can develop policies and interventions to improve health equity.

“How do we define and measure health equity? The State of Current Practice and Tools to Advance Health Equity” is the second article in the special section. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducted a review of peer-reviewed literature and other sources to identify tools and recommendations for measuring health equity. A range of tools and strategies to measure and track progress toward health equity are presented. These include health impact assessments, community health improvement plans, and adapting a “Health in All Policies” approach.

With our September issue, we are also publishing a supplement HRSA’s Investment in Public Health Training Centers. The public health workforce is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) Bureau of Health Workforce. This bureau includes both the Preventive Medicine Residency Program and the Public Health Training Centers (PHTCs). A previous JPHMP supplement described the preventive medicine residency program. This supplemental issue focuses on the PHTCs and their role in training the US public health workforce.

 

 

Related Posts:

• July 2022: Public Health Agencies Respond to Challenges
• May 2022: Healthy Behaviors
• March 2022: Public Health Surveillance
• January 2022: The Continuing Challenge of COVID-19 and Interventions to Address Health Disparities Associated with Structural Racism
• November 2021: Environmental Public Health and Healthy People 2030
• September 2021: Local Public Health Agencies
• July 2021: The Opioid Epidemic
• May 2021: COVID-19 Policy Implications
• January 2021: COVID-19 and Public Health–Looking Back, Moving Forward