CDC Healthy People Plan: have we met our goals?
In 1980, the U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the Healthy People initiative with the goal identifying nationwide health improvement priorities. Every decade the HHS releases a new initiative that provides measurable objectives meant to improve the overall health of the people of the United States. Most recently, in August of 2020 the Healthy People 2030 initiative was launched with five main objectives and health goals that they hope to achieve by 2030. Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the goals for this decade include the following:
- “Attain healthy, thriving lives and well-being, free of preventable disease, disability, injury and premature death.
- Eliminate health disparities, achieve health equity, and attain health literacy to improve the health and well-being of all.
- Create social, physical, and economic environments that promote attaining full potential for health and well-being for all.
- Promote healthy development, healthy behaviors and well-being across all life stages.
- Engage leadership, key constituents, and the public across multiple sectors to take action and design policies that improve the health and well-being of all.”
More specifically, this initiative’s overall goals include decreasing annual deaths, decreasing deaths from cancer and heart disease, and decreasing deaths related to diabetes. A more specific goal includes lowering deaths related to heart disease, as it was the fifth leading cause of death in 2020. The purpose of this article is to answer the question: is the HHS on track to meet their outlined goals by 2030? Moreover, this article seeks to understand the trend in people’s overall health from 2020–2023.
Per data provided by the CDC, when looking at deaths related to heart disease from 2020–2023, the number of deaths remain relatively the same until 2023. In 2023 there is a sharp decline in annual deaths related to heart disease by nearly 30%.. From 2020–2022, deaths related to heart disease stayed between 683,000 and 690,000, however in 2023 deaths dropped down to approximately 460,000. If the CDC manages to keep reducing deaths related to heart disease by this rate, then we are well on our way to surpassing this goal. However, in 2023, deaths related to diseases of the heart were ranked as the second leading cause of death. Moreover, since 2021, diseases of the heart have been the second leading cause of death among the U.S. population. In this perspective, the CDC might want to consider why diseases of the heart have suddenly gone from being the fifth leading cause to the second leading cause of deaths in the span of a year and has been continuously ranked this way.
Moreover, when looking at deaths related to diabetes, we are equally well on our way to surpassing this goal, if not having already achieved it. In 2020 and 2021 there were approximately 1 million deaths related to diabetes each year. By 2022, this number went down by 10% and annual deaths were approximately 900,000. What is even more shocking is that by the end of 2023, the number of annual deaths had been reduced to 650,000; that’s nearly a 40% decrease in annual deaths related to diabetes. Regarding the overall health of the United States population, total annual deaths seemed to have reached its peak in 2021; 2020 and 2022 did not fall short behind. Now in 2023, it seems that the total number of annual deaths seems to have reached an all-time low since 2014. Miraculously, by the end of 2023, annual deaths decreased by 30%, compared to 2022. Not only has this decreased, but it has well surpassed the all-time low for annual deaths in 2014 by half a million. One speculation for the peak of annual deaths from 2020–2022 is Covid, and other underlying respiratory issues. There is a positive correlation between the increase in annual deaths and covid during these times. Not only does Covid seem to spike this, but it has a large effect on annual deaths related to respiratory conditions. In 2023, both deaths related to respiratory conditions and covid have reached an all-time low since first being recorded in 2014 and 2020 respectively.
If the CDC continues to see these trends in upcoming years, I suggest that three years into this initiative we have well-surpassed the goal to decrease annual deaths. Moreover, the three specific goals that the CDC has set for this decade have already been met by 2023. Regardless if annual deaths fluctuate in the upcoming years, we have tracked that these record lows are achievable and can be sustained.
