Obesity Healthy People 2020 and Obesity Among

Obesity

Healthy People 2020 and Obesity among children in California

The obesity epidemic has extensive implications for our public health, both as a state and as a nation. Unfortunately, this epidemic is not limited to adults. To the contrary, the number of children in California who are clinically obese has been on a steady rise as well. According to the U.S. Department of Human Health Services, between 1994 and 2010, "the obesity rate among children and adolescents age 2 to 19 increased by 69% from 10.0% to 16.9%."

This trend means that the future generations of California will be increasingly susceptible to hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. This in turn dictates a negative pattern for our collective public health interests. This is one imperative underlying the Healthy People 2020 website maintained by the United States Department of Health, as well as the associated Healthy People 2020-page maintained by the California Department of Health. The two sites -- and specifically the section focusing on obesity hosted by the federal site -- draw a clear connection between reducing childhood obesity in California and improving the overall public health.

Information Overlap:

The two sites under consideration have a specific and intentional area of overlap. Both are designed to provide information regarding the Healthy People 2020 initiative. The California-maintained website demonstrates this overlap by articulating the mission pursued at the federal level. According to the CDPH, "Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) is a national health agenda that communicates a vision and a strategy for improving the health of the Nation's population and achieving health equity. Each decade since 1980, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released a comprehensive set of national public health objectives known as the Healthy People initiative. The initiative has been grounded in the notion that setting objectives and providing benchmarks to track and monitor progress can motivate, guide, and focus action"

These objectives and benchmarks are, in turn, extrapolated at the site maintained by the U.S. government. And as is demonstrated in the section hereafter, there is a direct connection between this overlap and the aim of overlapping federal and state level agency involvement.

Government Structure:

To this end, the structure of the Healthy People Initiative is specifically designed to allow for a top-down distribution from federal to state and local levels. According to the CDPH, the purpose of the objectives and benchmarks established in all health categories by the DHHS are intended to provide guidance and set standards for agencies at state and local public health departments.

Government Functions:

Just as it is the function of the federal government to provide the annual framework for creating public health priorities and standards annually through its Public Health Advisory Committee, the California site indicates that the function of its state and local agencies is to provide its share of counsel on the subject. According to its website, "on the national level, CDPH is participating in the feedback process towards the development of HP2020 through various means, including attendance at national Healthy People meetings and providing comments on the proposed HP2020 objectives." (CDPH, p. 1)

Additionally the website invites members of the public to contribute their support to the process by joining the Healthy People Consortium.

Government Collaboration:

Collaboration is a key feature of the initiative and is exemplified by the cross-linking between both websites and both the host of common informational resources to which both link. This is demonstrative of the collaboration which is at the philosophical root of the Health People 2020 initiative.

Public and Community Health:

Public and community health concern the broad patterns of health beliefs, behaviors and outcomes in local communities as well in state and federal populations. Patterns in public and community health tend to relate to other sociological features such as income or geographical location and may implicate opportunities for target improvement.