America is facing a health crisis. Even though America spends more than $2 trillion annually on health care—more than any other nation in the world—tens of millions of Americans suffer every day from preventable diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some forms of cancer that rob them of their health and quality of life.
Trust for America’s Health undertook a year-long consensus-building process, consulting more than 150 leading health experts and organizations to assemble recommendations for effective ways to modernize the federal public health system to meet the range of health challenges we face.
This new Blueprint for a Healthier America published in October 2008 is a federal policy guide for the next president, administration and congress, with expert recommendations to revitalize the nation’s ability to protect the health of all Americans.
The 133 page report Blueprint for a Healthier America contains a vision statement signed by more than 140 leading health organizations that outlines principles to make disease and injury prevention a cornerstone of America’s health policies. 4 Guiding Principles for Prevention forms the basis of which the 2 first are:
1. Prevention must drive our nation’s health strategy.
2. Americans deserve healthy and safe places to live, work, and play.
The blueprint report also contains an agenda for modernizing public health paper that defines the need and scope for a policy agenda to modernize public health. This paper is the result of a series of consensus meetings with more than 35 experts and national organizations.