FY 2023 Annual Performance Plan and Report - Strategic Goal 2: Objective 2.3

Fiscal Year 2023
Released March, 2022

Topics on this page: Objective 2.3: Enhance promotion of healthy behaviors to reduce occurrence and disparities in preventable injury, illness, and death | Objective 2.3 Table of Related Performance Measures

Objective 2.3: Enhance promotion of healthy behaviors to reduce occurrence and disparities in preventable injury, illness, and death

HHS supports strategies to promote healthy behaviors to reduce the occurrence of and disparities in preventable injury, illness, and death.  The Department develops, communicates, and disseminates information to improve health literacy about the benefits of healthy behaviors.  HHS leverages resources, partnerships, and collaborations to support healthy behaviors that improve health conditions and reduce disparities in health outcomes.  HHS also advances and applies research and data insights to inform evidence-based prevention, intervention, and policy approaches to address disparities in preventable injury, illness, and death.

The Office of the Secretary leads this objective.  The following divisions are responsible for implementing programs under this strategic objective: AHRQ, ACF, ACL, ASFR, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS, NIH, OASH, and SAMHSA.  The narrative below provides a brief summary of any past work towards these objectives and strategies planned to improve or maintain performance on these objectives.

Objective 2.3 Table of Related Performance Measures

Although cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, the tobaccoReferences to tobacco refer to commercial tobacco and not the sacred and traditional use of tobacco by some American Indian communities. product use landscape continues to diversify to include multiple combustible tobacco products, including cigars, cigarillos and little cigars, pipe tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and hookah.  Per capita combustible tobacco product consumption remained unchanged from 1,004 cigarette equivalents in FY 2019 to 1,004 cigarette equivalents in FY 2020.  CDC will continue to work to decrease combustible tobacco consumption in the U.S.

CDC recommendations to help reduce tobacco consumption include: raising the price of tobacco products, providing access to cessation services, protecting everyone’s right to breathe clean air, and mass-reach media campaigns warning about the dangers of tobacco use.  CDC strategies to promote these interventions include providing funding to 50 states, Washington, DC, 8 U.S territories and 26 tribes/tribal organizations through the National Tobacco Control Program and supporting grantees to implement Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs.  CDC also funds the Tips From Former Smokers Campaign,® a national campaign profiling real people who live with serious health effects due to smoking and secondhand smoke exposure.

The proportion of adults who engage in leisure-time physical activity increased from 63.8% in FY 2008 to 73.9% in FY 2020.  CDC’s Active People, Healthy Nation^SM is a national initiative to help 27 million Americans become more physically active by 2027.  CDC used percent improvement target setting methodology to set a goal of a 0.3% increase per year for the proportion of adults (age 18 and older) that engage in leisure-time physical activity.   This translates to a 0.6% increase every two years and is consistent with administration of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), the survey used to collect this data, which is administered every two years instead of annually.

CDC funds states, communities, and organizations with national reach to design communities that are safe and easy for people of all ages and abilities to be physically active.  In addition, CDC trains states and communities to implement strategies to improve the walkability of communities.  For example, the CDC funded Walkability Action Institute has trained 51 teams that potentially reach over 40 million people.  CDC will continue to promote the critical need for safe and easy places for physical activity to take place and help implement high impact strategies for walking and walkable communities like Complete Streets and Safe Routes to Schools.  As of December 2021, over 1,600 Complete Streets policies, including those adopted by 35 state governments plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C., have been reported to the National Complete Streets Coalition.

Health centers continue to be a critical element of the health system, largely because they can provide an accessible and dependable source of high quality, affordable, and cost-effective primary health care services in underserved communities.  In particular, health centers emphasize coordinated primary and preventive services that promote reductions in health disparities for low‐income individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, rural communities, and other underserved populations.  Health centers emphasize coordinated and comprehensive care, the ability to manage patients with multiple health care needs, and the use of key quality improvement practices.  Health center patients, including low-income individuals, racial/ethnic minority groups, and persons who are uninsured, are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.  Clinical evidence indicates that access to appropriate care can improve the health status of patients with chronic diseases and thus reduce or eliminate health disparities.

The FY 23 target was set based on historical data trends.  Recovery efforts from COVID-19, including significant use of telemedicine, are expected to bring performance back to previous levels.