Healthy People 2020: A Literature Review

Introduction Predicated by outcome-based predictors, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPTF) and Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) are combined efforts that have set forth the goals for national standards of evidence-based recommendations of clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services and preventive medications. The core domains of both these national endeavors are grounded in principals of health promotion and disease prevention with goals, initiatives and recommendations to improve the health of Americans. With HP2020, in particular, providing measurable progress through the use of benchmarks over ten-year periods and highlighting race/ethnicity and sex disparities. Amongst the 1,200 objectives, encompassing 42 distinct public health topics and objectives, are recommendations to reduce the number of intentional and unintentional injuries and violence prevention, such as falls in the elderly population, motor vehicle accidents, rape and homicide, to name a few. In fact, topics and objectives of HP2020 provide baseline and target data culminated from sources such as National Vital Statistics System-Mortality (NVSS-M), Center for Disease Control
(2010) estimates that by the year 2020, the cost is likely to reach $43.8 billion. Systematic reviews of literature demonstrate that fall prevention is beneficial to older adults within the community as well as the institutionalized and hospitalized. Beyond the scope of hospitalization due to fall injuries, there are other effects such as premature death, disability, poor mental health, high medical costs and lost productivity (USDHHS, 2011). Due to these ongoing concerns directly and indirectly related to falls, circumventing in the primary care setting makes fall prevention a significant measure to health promotion, disease prevention and