Researchers, policymakers, sociologists and doctors have long asked how to best measure the health of a nation, yet the challenge persists. The nonprofit State of the USA, Inc. (SUSA) is taking on this challenge, demonstrating how to measure the health of the United States. The organization is developing a new website intended to provide reliable and objective facts about the U.S. in a number of key areas, including health, and to provide an interactive tool with which individuals can track the progress made in each of these areas. In 2008, SUSA asked the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the State of the USA Health Indicators to provide guidance on 20 key indicators to be used on the organization's website that would be valuable in assessing health. Each indicator was required to demonstrate: a clear importance to health or health care, the availability of reliable, high quality data to measure change in the indicators over time, the potential to be measured with federally collected data, and the capability to be broken down by geography, populations subgroups including race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Taken together, the selected indicators reflect the overall health of the nation and the efficiency and efficacy of U.S. health systems. The complete list of 20 can be found in the report brief and book.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Americans are accustomed to anecdotal evidence of the health care crisis. Yet, personal or local stories do not provide a comprehensive nationwide picture of our access to health care. Now, this book offers the long-awaited health equivalent of national economic indicators. This useful volume defines a set of national objectives and identifies indicatorsâ€"measures of utilization and outcomeâ€"that can "sense" when and where problems occur in accessing specific health care services. Using the indicators, the committee presents significant conclusions about the situation today, examining the relationships between access to care and factors such as income, race, ethnic origin, and location. The committee offers recommendations to federal, state, and local agencies for improving data collection and monitoring. This highly readable and well-organized volume will be essential for policymakers, public health officials, insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and nurses, and interested individuals.

For the past three decades, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a national agenda aimed at improving the health of all Americans over each 10-year span. Under each of these Healthy People initiatives, HHS established health targets and monitored how well people were reaching them over time. In response to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 to develop and recommend 12 indicators and 24 objectives for consideration by HHS for guiding a national health agenda and for consideration for inclusion in Healthy People 2020. The work of the committee built upon the 1999 IOM report, Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2010, and on the work of the Committee on the State of the USA Health Indicators. Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 lays out the proposed agenda for the current decade, which will end in 2020.

For the past three decades, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a national agenda aimed at improving the health of all Americans over each 10-year span. Under each of these Healthy People initiatives, HHS established health targets and monitored how well people were reaching them over time. In response to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) established the Committee on Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 to develop and recommend 12 indicators and 24 objectives for consideration by HHS for guiding a national health agenda and for consideration for inclusion in Healthy People 2020. The work of the committee built upon the 1999 IOM report, Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2010, and on the work of the Committee on the State of the USA Health Indicators. Leading Health Indicators for Healthy People 2020 lays out the proposed agenda for the current decade, which will end in 2020.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Quality Measures for the Healthy People Leading Health Indicators was charged by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health to identify measures of quality for the 12 Leading Health Indicator (LHI) topics and 26 Leading Health Indicators in Healthy People 2020 (HP2020), the current version of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 10-year agenda for improving the nation's health. The scope of work for this project is to use the nine aims for improvement of quality in public health (population-centered, equitable, proactive, health promoting, risk reducing, vigilant, transparent, effective, and efficient) as a framework to identify quality measures for the Healthy People Leading Health Indicators (LHIs). The committee reviewed existing literature on the 12 LHI topics and the 26 Leading Health Indicators. Quality measures for the LHIs that are aligned with the nine aims for improvement of quality in public health will be identified. When appropriate, alignments with the six Priority Areas for Improvement of Quality in Public Health will be noted in the Committee's report. Toward Quality Measures for Population Health and the Leading Health Indicators also address data reporting and analytical capacities that must be available to capture the measures and for demonstrating the value of the measures to improving population health. Toward Quality Measures for Population Health and the Leading Health Indicators provides recommendations for how the measures can be used across sectors of the public health and health care systems. The six priority areas (also known as drivers) are population health metrics and information technology; evidence-based practices, research, and evaluation; systems thinking; sustainability and stewardship; policy; and workforce and education.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

This annual overview report of national trends in health statistics contains a Chartbook that assesses the nation's health by presenting trends and current information on selected measures of morbidity, mortality, health care utilization and access, health risk factors, prevention, health insurance, and personal health-care expenditures. Chapters devoted to population characteristics, prevention, health risk factors, health care resources, personal health care expenditures, health insurance, and trend tables may provide the health/medical statistician, data analyst, biostatistician with additional information to complete experimental studies or provide necessary research for pharmaceutical companies to gain data for modeling and sampling. Undergraduate students engaged in applied mathematics or statistical compilations to graduate students completing biostatistics degree programs to include statistical inference principles, probability, sampling methods and data analysis as well as specialized medical statistics courses relating to epidemiology and other health topics may be interested in this volume. Related products: Your Guide to Choosing a Nursing Home or Other Long-Term Services & Supports available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/your-guide-choosing-nursing-home-or-other-long-term-services-supports Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, 2014 available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/health-insurance-coverage-united-states-2014 "Some System of the Nature Here Proposed": Joseph Lovell's Remarks on the Sick Report, Northern Department, U.S. Army, 1817, and the Rise of the Modern US Army Medical Department can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/some-system-nature-here-proposed-joseph-lovells-remarks-sick-report-northern-department-us Guide to Clinical Preventive Services 2014: Recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (ePub) -Free digital eBook download available at the US Government Online Bookstore here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/guide-clinical-preventive-services-2014-recommendations-us-preventive-services-task-force --Also available for FREE digital eBook download from Apple iBookstore, BarnesandNoble.com (Nook Bookstore), Google Play eBookstore, and Overdrive -Please use ISBN: 9780160926426 to search these commercial platforms.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.