In the year 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established a program called Healthy People 2010, a “statement of national health objectives designed to identify the most significant preventable threats to health and to establish national goals to reduce these threats.”

These health objectives include ten main indicators that allow us to track the major health concerns in the U.S. over the last ten years. These indicators include the following:

• physical activity
• overweight and obesity
• tobacco use
• substance abuse
• responsible sexual behavior
• mental health
• injury and violence
• environmental quality
• immunization
• access to healthcare

So how are we doing in 2010 compared to how we did in 2000 and to how we said we were going to do? Not that well for obesity, high blood pressure, and tooth decay in children, for example. But better than expected for vaccinations, strokes, cancer and heart disease.

Of all the goals that were set in 2000, only 18% have been achieved. But for 23% of the goals, the health of our country has gotten worse, rather than better.

For example, in the year 2000, about 25% of all adults were obese. The goal was to get that rate down to 15% by 2010. Instead, the rate increased to 34%! The same can be said about high blood pressure. In 2000, the percentage of adults with high blood pressure was 28%. The goal was to bring that rate down to 16% in 2010, but that has not happened as it remained at around 29%. In addition, 16% of young children had tooth decay in 2000 and the goals called to decrease that rate to 9%. However, the rate increased to 20%.

As new goals are now being developed for 2020, major changes at the policy and individual levels need to take place for us to make better progress in the next decade.