This is all a bit reminiscent of Charles Webster's Healthy or
Hungry Thirties? (History Workshop Journal 1982, 13, 110-129)
which documents the English Ministry of Health's optimistic spin
around the national public health in the 1930s, in contrast with
local Medical Officers of Health like
McGonigle who were documenting the truth about poverty,
malnutrition and dreadful housing conditions suffered by the
population...

Alex

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Health status of America 2006 report
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:27:25 -0500
From: Barbara Krimgold <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]

Hello Badri,

While the US has invested considerable sums in "bioterrorism" in the
past few years and this resulted in dollars invested in public 
health,
and while
the four areas mentioned -- "public health programmes, research, 
health
care and health education" -- are indeed longtime priorities of 
the CDC,
I would not be overly optimistic about US health equity.

For starters, the US life expectancy has dropped to 30th in the 
latest
global health rankings, just below Cuba.  Also, if you read 
further in
the
2006 report, you will see that the summary of the Overall Health 
of the
Nation notes advances in such areas as "emphasizing healthy 
lifestyle"
and "medication, medical technology...procedures, new prescription
drugs" while also noting that in some areas, progress "has not 
been as
rapid as in earlier years or trends have been moving in the wrong
direction.  Moreover, improvements have not been equally 
distributed by
income, race, ethnicity, education or geography."

In short, health inequalities and health inequities in the US are
growing in the twenty-first century. In other words, in my view its
rhetoric not reality.

I look forward to hearing from others in the US about their views of
this report.

Barbara

Barbara Kivimae Krimgold
Director
Kellogg Health Scholars Program, Multidisciplinary Track
Scholars in Health Disparities Program
Kellogg Fellows in Health Policy Research Program
H. Jack Geiger Congressional Health Policy Fellows Program
Center for the Advancement of Health
2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Suite 210
Washington DC 20009-1231
202-387-2829   [log in to unmask]   www.cfah.org

-----Original Message-----
From: A discussion forum and information resource for public health
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of badri badrinath

Subject: Health status of America 2006 report


Dear Colleague,

Warm greetings and a very good Monday morning to you all from sunny
Suffolk in the East of England.

The latest report on the health of the population of the United 
States
has been published. "Health, United States, 2006, is the 30th 
annual report
on the health status of the Nation prepared by the Secretary of 
the DHHS
for the President and Congress". The report presents trends in 
health status
and health care utilization, resources and expenditure. As a PH 
practitioner
these lines in the executive summary attracted my attention. 
"The health
of the nation continues to improve overall in many respects, in part
because of the significant resources devoted to public health 
programmes, research,
health care and health education".

I found the order in which the interventions are stated with public
health programmes in the forefront very reassuring. US 
colleagues will be able
to tell us whether this is simply a rhetoric or in fact a 
reality. Another
interesting point is the reduction in the proportion of visits to
office-based doctors that were made to general and family practice
physicians by 10% over the last two decades.

The 559 page report is available on line @
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf

I thought this report might be of interest to some of our 
colleagues on
the list.

Warm regards & very best wishes,

Badri

Dr P Badrinath MD BS M.Phil MPH FFPH PhD (Cantab)
Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Affiliated Clinical Lecturer
Suffolk PCT & University of Cambridge
Thingoe House, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK
http://myprofile.cos.com/badrishanthi