[EQ] Strong Medicine for a Healthier America

Strong Medicine for a Healthier America

American Journal of Preventive Medicine supplement examines how social factors affect health and offers recommendations for action.

Am J Prev Med  2011;40(1S1)S1–S3 S1

Website http://bit.ly/fEvBH1

 

“…..A supplement to the latest issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM), funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, includes six articles and a broad array of commentaries that provide a fundamental understanding of the fact that where, we live, learn, work and play has as much to do with our health as the health care we receive.

 

The authors–including Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, David R. Williams, Michael G. Marmot and more–address factors beginning with early childhood education, to homes and communities, to the economic rationale for improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans.

 

Together, the collection provides an in-depth look at why some Americans are so much healthier than others and why Americans are not the healthiest people in the world.

 

‘………There is more to health than health care. Where we live, work, learn, and play can affect our health more than what happens in the physician’s offıce.

Yet, ask our national leaders “What determines health?” and you’ll hear about access to health care. As vital as health care and healthcare reform are, they are just part of the answer. Over the past few years, more and more attention has focused on the social factors that are important determinants of how healthy we are.
Examining these factors—the relationships between how we live our lives and the economic, social, and physical environments that surround us—reveals just how connected our health is with how we live, where we live, and the world into which we were born.

While medical care is vital to treat disease once diagnosed, it turns out that prevention requires a much broader approach than the medical model suggests. Some factors that affect health are within our control, but many are not…..”

From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Risa Lavizzo-Mourey), Princeton, New Jersey; Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, School of Public Health, and Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University (David R  Williams), Cambridge, Massachusetts

Articles Include:

·         Strong Medicine for a Healthier America: Introduction

·         Broadening the Focus: The Need to Address the Social Determinants of Health

·         Healthy Starts for All: Policy Prescriptions

·         Citizen-Centered Health Promotion

·         Healthy Homes and Communities

·         When Do We Know Enough to Recommend Action on the Social Determinants of Health?

·         The Economic Value of Improving the Health of Disadvantaged Americans

Commentaries include

·         Improving Health: Social Determinants and Personal Choice

·         To Improve Health, Don't Follow the Money

·         Moving on Upstream: The Role of Health Departments in Addressing Socioecologic Determinants of Disease

·         Businesses As Partners to Improve Community Health

·         Strengthening the Public Research Agenda for Social Determinants of Health

“…..The AJPM supplement builds on the work of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America, which was charged with exploring how factors outside the health care system impact health and crafting recommendations to improve the health of all Americans. Members of the Commission’s research team and former staff director David R. Williams are among the authors discussing the rationale for the Commission’s 10-recommendation blueprint and the need for action to address the social determinants of health….”

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