{"id":5714,"date":"2021-04-23T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nchstats.com\/?p=5714"},"modified":"2021-04-23T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T15:00:00","slug":"podcast-healthy-people-initiative-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2021\/04\/23\/5714\/","title":{"rendered":"PODCAST: Healthy People Initiative, Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATCAST, APRIL 2021: DISCUSSION WITH DAVID HUANG, CHIEF, STATISTICIAN, ABOUT HEALTHY PEOPLE INITIATIVE.<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/podcasts\/2021\/20210423\/20210423.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

\"podcast-icon\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 David Huang is the chief of the health promotion statistics branch at NCHS, and serves as the center\u2019s primary statistical advisor on the Healthy People initiative. Healthy People for decades now has been identifying science-based objectives with targets to monitor progress and motivate and focus action aimed at improving the health of the nation.\u00a0 David joined us to discuss the history of the program, what is going on presently, and what the future directions are.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we turn to the new tables that you\u2019ve released.\u00a0 Can you tell us a little bit about what\u2019s going on, what\u2019s new with Healthy People?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 So although we\u2019ve launched Healthy People 2030 \u2013 and it\u2019s been about a year now \u2013 we aren\u2019t done with Healthy People 2020 yet. \u00a0\u201cHealthy People 2020 Final Review\u201d is a quantitative assessment of the progress \u00a0made towards the 2020 goals and objectives by the end of the decade.\u00a0 Unlike previous Healthy People data publications like the \u201cHealthy People 2020 Midcourse review\u201d that were released as complete publications, the \u201cHealthy People 2020 Final Review\u201d actually consists of a suite of products that will be released by NCHS on a rolling basis over the course of the next year.\u00a0 Many of these final review components will be released in a web-based format.\u00a0 The first release in this suite of products is the web-based \u201cHealthy People 2020 Progress Table\u201d which was released on March 31st<\/sup>.\u00a0 This table provides the final progress status for 1100 measurable objectives, which are those with at least baseline data. And note that this set of 1100 is actually broader than the 985 trackable objectives mentioned earlier, and those are objectives with the baseline and at least one followed data point.\u00a0 Final progress was generally measured using the latest available data as of January 2020.\u00a0 The web format will allow users to dynamically filter the table by any of the following categories in any combination: Healthy People 2020 topic area, key term, and final progress status.\u00a0 This format will also allow users to download customized tables for future use.\u00a0 We\u2019re really hopeful that this new format is beneficial for users.\u00a0 One notable feature about these new tables is the ability to look at objectives by topics and themes \u2013 also referred to as \u2018key terms\u2019 \u2013 that cut across Healthy People 2020 topic areas.\u00a0 And this is actually a feature that also exists on the Healthy People 2030 website.\u00a0 This ability to look at objectives not just by topic area but also across these broad topics and themes.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Earlier you said that about a third of the 2020 objectives have been met or exceeded, I guess.\u00a0 Could you give us some highlights from the tables that have been released?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Certainly there are a lot of objectives.\u00a0 For example, in chronic diseases like cancer, the overall cancer death rate, as well as many of the individual cancer death rate targets have been met.\u00a0 There are also objectives across other topic areas not related to chronic disease that have been met. For example, persons who are unable to obtain or delay needing medical care is another example in the access to health services topic area.\u00a0 But all in all, a third of objective targets have been met, and these objectives do stand many of the topic areas across Healthy People 2020.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 I was just scrolling down some of these and there\u2019s some measures dealing with school and education.\u00a0 It kind of looks like kids are doing better in school \u2013 was that sort of what the data show?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 I think it definitely depends on the objective, but yes there is a very large topic area in \u201cHealthy People 2020\u201d on education and community-based programs.\u00a0 And there are many objectives in that topic area that have met their targets.\u00a0 Not all of them are necessarily related to how kids are doing in school.\u00a0 For example, there\u2019s an objective on the nurse to student ratio.\u00a0 That\u2019s an example of an objective in that topic area that\u2019s been met.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 It was interesting because there was one measure that showed that kids were doing better than they were at the baseline, but at the same time fewer thought that school was meaningful or important. I thought that was kind of interesting, almost a contradiction if you will.<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right and you know there\u2019s also consideration that should be given to the data source. I think there there\u2019s obviously a broad range of not just topics but data sources in \u201cHealthy People.\u201d I think that the progress tables do provide a nice, high-level summary of how we\u2019re doing on broad health indicators and hopefully will be useful for stakeholders.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 It looks like there\u2019s progress made in some of the health care measures \u2013 \u00a0more people with medical and dental insurance, more with the source of ongoing care, ER wait times above normal were down \u2013 most of that looked pretty positive I guess.\u00a0 But there were some measures that looked like they weren\u2019t necessarily going in the right direction, such as people unable to get prescription medication when they needed.\u00a0 It looked like that was lower, is that correct?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes that\u2019s correct and that particular objective is actually part of a series of objectives that look at persons unable to obtain or delaying receipt of medical care, dental care, and then prescription medications as you mentioned is the one that is moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 And just for people who don\u2019t have the level of statistical sophistication, how the tables are laid out is you have a baseline percentage that you started with, and then at the cut point you have what the percentage did \u2013 if it changed either up or down \u2013 but then also you have another column that determines whether any change was statistically significant, is that correct?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah and it is actually a little bit more nuanced than that.\u00a0 The way that we measure movement when objectives are moving towards their targets is really the percentage of the targeted change that\u2019s achieved.\u00a0 That number will be equal to 100% if an objective exactly meets its target.\u00a0 And it\u2019s basically a sliding scale for other objectives that are moving in the right direction.\u00a0 On the other hand, for objectives that are not moving in the right direction, you simply use the magnitude of the percent change from the baseline to assess movement away.\u00a0 And then there is that column that you mentioned which does let the user know whether this movement \u2013 whether it\u2019s in a positive or negative direction relative to the target is statistically significant or not.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0 Anything else you\u2019d like to talk about with regard to the new tables that have been posted?<\/p>\n

DAVID HUANG:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, as I mentioned this is part of a larger set of components \u2013 the full \u201dHealthy People 2020 Final Review\u201d will be released in components over the next several months.\u00a0 So we are definitely looking forward to other components being released.\u00a0 We will actually be working next on a series of pie charts that will actually use the information in this table and summarize it in pie charts so that users can see at a glance, for example, for their set of objectives that they filter down to, what proportion have met, or exceeded, improved, or got worse, for example.<\/p>\n

HOST:<\/strong>\u00a0Our thanks to David Huang for joining us on this edition of \u201cStatcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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