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December 17, 2002
What makes us healthy? What makes us sick? How does your own
community measure up to others, your county, the state and the
nation?
Published by the Hawaii Department of Health, "Toward A Healthy
Hawaii 2010: Checking the Health of Your County" is the first
collective, comprehensive set of health status data on Hawaii
communities ever made available.
As part of the Healthy Hawaii Initiative’s (HHI) effort to
create a central source of community health status information, the
department has developed health profiles for each of Hawaii’s
four counties. The profiles report data on 110 important measures of
public health, comparing communities within each county, the four
counties to each other, and the counties and our state to the national
Healthy People goals.
Acting Health Director Loretta Fuddy said, "These health profiles
offer legislators, grant writers, community leaders, and decision
makers greatly improved access to important health status information,
which can help focus our statewide efforts on areas of real need."
Toward A Healthy Hawaii 2010 reports on national indicators
that provide a snapshot of the health of our communities, counties and
state and can serve as a tool for planning as well as learning. The
report looks at health determinants, such as lifestyle behaviors, and
at health status, an examination of well-being, general health,
injuries, conditions, diseases, and deaths.
While Hawaii has met national goals in several important areas such
as women who received mammograms and coronary heart disease deaths, the
state has work to do in many other areas. Hawaii’s rate of deaths
from stroke is higher than the national goal. The state’s rate of
diabetes is more than twice the Healthy People goal. Contributors to
the development of both Type 2 diabetes and stroke are major risk
factors such as lack of physical activity, poor dietary habits, which
can lead to obesity, and smoking. Half of Hawaii’s adult
population is overweight; almost 78% don’t eat enough fruits and
vegetables, and almost 20% of our adult population use tobacco (the
national 2010 goal for tobacco use is 12%.)
These profiles are also an exciting first step in establishing a
web-based data warehouse to permit single source access to multiple
health data sets. By the summer of 2003, the data warehouse will have
full query capability, allowing interested citizens to create health
status reports using many variables.
Healthy People 2010 is a set of 467 national health
objectives compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
that provides a road map for improving the health of all people. These
objectives are categorized in 28 focus areas that serve two overarching
health goals: (1) Increase quality and years of healthy life; (2)
Eliminate health disparities. The Healthy Hawaii Initiative is designed
as a subset of Healthy People 2010.
While protecting the public’s health is a core responsibility
of government, no single agency can do it alone. A broad range of
factors affect health status, many of which are beyond the authority of
the Department of Health. Public-private partnerships and individual
actions are key in building a healthy and prosperous state.
The department invites everyone to visit the Hawaii Outcomes
Institute’s website at www.hawaiioutcomes.org to view and download all
four county reports. We encourage all of Hawaii’s citizens to
consider the information in the profiles to help identify areas for
future collaboration in promoting and supporting good public
health.
The Department of Health’s Healthy Hawaii Initiative (HHI) is
funded by tobacco settlement dollars and is a major, statewide effort
to encourage healthy lifestyles and the environments to support them.
Emphasis is placed on the healthy development of children and
adolescents in relation to the three critical risk factors of poor
nutrition, lack of physical activity, and tobacco use that contribute
significantly to the burden of chronic disease.
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