The United States has one of the safest food supplies in the world. Nevertheless, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), foodborne disease causes approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year [1] — and that’s just an estimate based on data collected from the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), other surveillance networks and published studies.
You Can Help Improve the Health of America: Healthy People 2020
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is inviting people to submit comments and suggestions as part of the collaborative process for Healthy People 2020. Healthy People is consortium of diverse, motivated and dedicated agencies and organizations committed to working together to help achieve health goals and objectives for the nation. As a national initiative, Healthy People 2020’s success depends on public input.
Every 10 years, the HHS leverages scientific insights and lessons learned from the past decade, along with knowledge of new and emerging issues, data, trends and innovations to set the nation’s health priorities. In 2007 and 2008, the Healthy People 2020 framework was established, consisting of the vision, mission and overarching goals. In 2009, specific objectives and strategies to achieve them were developed. This month, the HHS is requesting public comments on the draft set of proposed objectives for Healthy People 2020. You are invited to comment on the proposed objectives and topic areas and suggest additional objectives and/or topic areas that you feel are missing.