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Thank you. There is another academia-oriented question and we’ll have Dean Reum respond
to it.
Hi, I’m Ellen Schmidt. I work at the Education Development Center for the Center for the
Study and Prevention of Injuries, Violence and Suicide. And clearly, I’m sure that
when you say healthy, you mean healthy and safe and so, we are very supportive of all
of the activities that are happening and when I look at the topic areas, it’s very exciting
to see that probably over half of them could involve safety issues, as well as — and
obviously I haven’t read them all so I don’t know if they already do that. I know some
do. What I’m wondering is, I think the federal government is working very hard to do lots
of interagency groups, which I applaud them because we want that to happen in the states
as well. And that’s beginning to happen. But much of the funding that comes down is
funded in silos and obviously, would take a huge change to, how to change that. But
I think in some ways that funding has to be guarded or guided to this interagency collaboration,
so that we’re all addressing health risk factors and protective factors, that affect
each of the different diseases or injuries. And so I’m not sure exactly how that could
happen. But, that would be a challenge that I would ask you about is how can we get all
the people on the ground to have the resources to then do that cross fertilization and working
together?
Thank you for your question. I can start with that one. We absolutely agree with you that
the more collaboration on the ground, the more merging of funding streams, the more
planning at the community level, the better off we’ll be as a country. I think we started
with the Affordable Care Act funding as a prevention fund which is new funding that
is very community-based. We have communities putting prevention to work, efforts funded
by the CDC, new community transformation grants that are part of the prevention fund moving
forward. So that’s a very exciting, very tangible part of the Affordable Care Act and
hopefully we’ll see much more in terms of collaboration funded by those efforts in the
I’m Dr. Vernon Daly, and I’m the President of the Heureka Center for Disease Prevention
and Health Promotion. It is an organization 20 years old, and as its name suggests, we
focused from the onset, and how we can prevent disease, and promote wellness. We have done
a lot of community projects with this, and I had the pleasure of going not only statewide
but to the national arena and served for three years at the Center for Disease Control to
help to put the information out. Let me just say why I’m saying this: I admire so greatly
what you’ve done. And not only you as this group, but I have followed the work of Healthy
People for the last 25 years. And I think that it is a marvelous thing. What I’m troubled
about and maybe you can help me with this. The disease entity, the impact that we’re
seeing is in the community. The question is, how do we reach the community? That was the
focus and remains the focus of what we are trying to do. As we look around, and you probably
may have done this too, we find that we have a system that is excellent, and intervention,
intervening after the fact, could be extremely deficient in trying to do anything to prevent
the fact from happening. I must point out, unless we change that, and prevent, prevent,
prevent what we can, there is no way we're going to make a serious change in the outcomes.
There will always be too much pathology coming down the road. And, we can definitely change
that. I would like to see if there is any focus on how we can do this. We look at the
intervention system, we have nice hospitals, clinics, all kind of healing centers. Can
anybody help me to find a single disease-prevention and health-promotion center in your community?
That is what we’re focused on. And I would like to tell you that, at this point, after
20 years, we have created a model that we’ve used extensively and successfully, and I’m
just in the process now of sharing it with all of us. I’ll be happy to share it with
you because I would like you to look at and it give us your feedback and input. All I
need is just an e-mail, and I have it right now, on a PowerPoint presentation. I can’t
afford the rest of it yet. I’ll send it to you, I think that together, we must realize,
in each community what we need right now is a disease prevention center. We are serving
a huge portion of our population through the emergency room. Very inadequate care. And
now, where can someone go to find help to remain well? We must now create the infrastructure
for prevention, if we do that, together with all the fine things we have and then, make
a marriage of these together, we can prevent just about, well, our own figures say, the
national figures say we can prevent 75% of the debilitating illnesses that we see. I
believe that it is higher than that. But I’ll go for 50%.
Okay, thank you very much, sir. Dean Reum, do you want to try that one?
[Laughter]
First of all you make a terrific point about community. How many of you have neighbors
that have said, when you tell them what you did, “I could never do what you do.” How
many of you have ever had that happen? Come on, put your hands up. Okay, here is the truth
that 2020 lays out, is that as long as people believe that, as long as they believe that
the role of improving the health of the public and preventing illness and disease belongs
to us, they don’t need to take any responsibility. They can always believe that you’ll be there
to protect them. And I think 2020 does invite us to think about the communities out there.
And you were absolutely right, our schools of public health are housed in places where
there is extraordinary disparity. The fact of the matter is if we enter into those communities
with answers rather than with what’s laid out in 2020, that frames thing in terms of
questions, and respect, and acknowledging the strength of the community as our beginning
position, we’re going to fail. Unless we adopt that. You know the person who taught
us that is Regina Benjamin. Our Surgeon General who is seated right here in the front. And
physical activity. Anybody read about the physical activity part of the report? One
of the things they tell us is that standing up, stand up, everybody, stand up. There is
a person in front of you that you haven’t met and a person behind that you have not
met who’s a member of the public health community who’s about transforming the world.
There is a director of the American Public Health Association seated in the second row.
We have folks from NACCHO and ASTHO. We have students who are looking for jobs from NACCHO
and ASTHO. [Laughter]
Take two seconds and introduce one another and be a community about prevention. Introduce
yourselves. [Crowd noise]
[Crowd noise]
[Crowd noise]
[Crowd noise]
[Crowd noise]
I’m told that’s the sound that everybody at those committee meetings hoped to hear.
You sound excited. You sound hopeful, and, I think that you sound thankful. Any of you
live in communities? [Laughter]
There is something called a county health department. And, those folks need your help,
need your guidance and your time and need your expertise and that’s another way to
respond. Right now, I would like for you to respond by thanking this first panel of presenters
wildly abandon and if you feel like standing up again, feel free to do so.
[Applause] The second part of the panel is…you look
at these things and say, “Okay, now what do we do? How do we make this real? What are
the steps that we need to take?” And so we tried to put together a panel of people
that are extraordinarily gifted in thinking broadly, and in thinking about 2020. I’m
always imagining, wasn’t that perfect vision? Now we have 2020 as our perfect vision and
our perfect health, and as President Knapp said to me, he said our university will be
celebrating its 100th birthday in 2021 so incoming class will be healthier than ever
before. So which we’re very excited about. But, at this point, what we’d like to do
is introduce the Deputy Assistant Secretary for health, disease, prevention and health
promotion. Rear admiral Slade-Sawyer is responsible for strengthening the disease prevention and
health promotion priorities of the department within a collaborative framework of HHS agencies.
Rear admiral Slade-Sawyer leads the Office of the Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
in coordinating three key initiatives for HHS. She’s just responsible for Healthy
People 2020, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.
Please give a warm welcome to Rear Admiral Penelope Slade-Sawyer.
[Applause]