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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		Healthy People 2010, Washington, D.C.
DATE:		January 25, 2000

It is a great personal honor to share this dais with so many extraordinary champions for America's health. Let me start by welcoming everyone involved with Healthy People 2010 who is here today - either in person, or by satellite, video or website.

Before I talk about Healthy People 2010, I'd like to acknowledge many of the people who made this extraordinary achievement possible because this great milestone in public health did not begin today and will not end today. That is certain.

Equally certain is the debt of thanks we owe to the many people who began this journey over 30 years ago - and without whom Healthy People 2010 would not exist.

It's literally a cast of thousands - from every discipline, doctors, nurses, dentists, public health advocates, social workers, nutritionists, educators, engineers, technology experts, and many more.

They're not only here from around the country, but from around the world. I am particularly pleased that my friend, His Excellency, Dr. Ismail Sallam, the Health Minister from Egypt, has joined us.

The Director of the National Office on Drug Control Policy, General Barry McCaffrey, is with us as well. He's a great friend of the Department and he is strongly committed to our nation's health goals.

I also welcome our federal partners from the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Transportation, and the EPA.

Also here are Dr. Julius Richmond, our former Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, who began the process in 1979, and my predecessor at HHS, Dr. Louis Sullivan, who 10 years ago stood here - in the same hotel and the same ballroom - to release Healthy People 2000.

As Dr. Sullivan knows, Secretaries of Health and Human Services - no matter which party they belong to - depend on first rate Assistant Secretaries of Health. I've already mentioned Dr. Richmond. There have been several others who have worked on this and earlier Healthy People plans including, Dr. Phil Lee, Dr. Robert Windom, Dr. Merlin DuVal, Dr. Edward Brandt Jr., Dr. James Mason, and Dr. J. Michael McGinnis. They've each made lasting and substantial contributions to the Healthy People process.

I also want to acknowledge all of the public health groups, professional associations - from kidney transplant patients to concerned mothers - who made this report possible.

Finally, and with deep appreciation, I want to thank our nation's doctor, the Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher, as well as Dr. Nicole Lurie, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, and Dr. Randy Wykoff, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (Disease Prevention and Health Promotion).

Today is an historic occasion. We are not only launching the nation's public health strategy for the next decade, we're issuing the first public health goals of the 21st century. So Healthy People 2010 is not just another federal plan to be printed, launched and shelved, . . .

It is a portrait of our nation: Healthy, strong and honorable in its commitment to disease prevention and health promotion for all. Healthy People 2010 is about all of us.

It is about every American: Young and old. Weak and strong. It's about Asian-Americans, African- Americans, Native-Americans, and Hispanics. It's about Republican, Democrat and Independents.

And perhaps most important, it's about our children and our children's children. So Healthy People 2010 is not about protecting public health in abstract terms, but responding to real problems faced by real people.

Healthy People 2010 is hardly light reading, but it ought to be required reading for anyone who cares about the health of Americans and their families. And it's about more than setting health goals - it's about the strategies that will enable America to meet them.

When the Healthy People 2010 process began, we had two important objectives in mind. First, we wanted to ensure that Americans not only added years to their lives, but added health to those years.

The 30-year increase in life expectancy since 1900 is perhaps the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century. We want that trend to continue so that any child borne today can expect to live into the next century.

What's more, as the baby boom continues to morph into the senior boom, that quality of life will become a central challenge to our health system. But we also had another objective. It was to insure that no Americans are left behind.

We understood that the President's commitment to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities by the year 2010 is a moral imperative. Research has long told us how select minority populations suffer from higher rates of infant mortality, diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and other health problems.

These problems in turn translate into poorer general health and reduced life expectancy. Reducing these disparities was one of the goals of the Healthy People 2000. Healthy People 2010 has a bolder goal - we seek to eliminate health disparities.

How are we going to meet this challenge? By - for the first time - not setting separate public health goals for racial and ethnic minorities. All Americans should have a chance to achieve the very best health status possible. Let me be clear: America cannot move ahead if any American is left behind.

But setting goals is of little value unless you measure your progress in meeting them. In government, we're used to relying on leading economic indicators. And today I'm pleased to announce that we have a new national health assessment tool, the "Ten Leading Health Indicators." These leading health indicators will be our nation's health report card.

By monitoring our progress in such areas as obesity, tobacco use, mental health, and access to care, states and communities will be able to assess their overall health status against baseline data, and track it over time. That's why Healthy People 2010 is more than just another report. It reflects the very best in public health thinking.

Healthy People is a process that put the infrastructure in place that will allow us to keep going for years to come. It's something else too: an open invitation to community leaders, and individual Americans to get involved. It's an invitation to build on partnerships and alliances at all levels of government, particularly state and local government health officials. 46 states now have their own Healthy People agendas in place - that's a partnership.

Healthy People 2010 is completely wired for the future. Not only is the entire report available online, but anyone can make Healthy People 2010 their own, by customizing their own tailored-made plans directly from the on-line report.

Healthy People 2010 is ambitious. The American people deserve nothing less. We know we can meet tough challenges. Since 1993, we've continued to make important progress in improving the health and welfare of all Americans.

The teen birth rate has fallen for seven years in a row; the overall immunization rate for preschool children increased to a record 80 percent; tobacco and illicit drug use among teenagers has declined. We've made major investments in the health of our children, increased life expectancy, and prenatal care. And we've taken significant steps in the battle against disease - including AIDS and cancer.

Everyone in this room should be proud of what we've accomplished. But every one of us should also feel challenged by the sheer magnitude of what remains undone. And most of all, each one of us should understand that if we work together, if we dedicate ourselves to this national agenda, America will become an even healthier nation ten years from now when the future HHS Secretary stands before you to announce Healthy People 2020.

Thank you.