Healthy Iowans is our state's five-year health assessment and health improvement plan. It focuses attention on Iowa's critical issues/needs and provides a blueprint for addressing them.
Healthy Iowans has a long history. The first version was called Healthy Iowans 2000. From 1990 to 2000, it served as Iowa's 10-year health improvement plan. It was followed by another 10-year plan called Healthy Iowans 2010.
An important product of Healthy Iowans 2010 is a spreadsheet that contains core data for measuring goals in the state health plan. In the spreadsheet, the 25 chapter goals are presented using categories such as data source, demographics of affected populations, and cross references to the national Healthy People plan.
At the outset of developing Healthy Iowans 2010, groups crafting the plan recognized that 10 years was too long a period to anticipate changes. Therefore, goals were set for 10 years with action steps set for five years; an evaluation and revisions would be made to the plan in midcourse of the decade.
Healthy People 2020 is an important resource in identifying Iowa's critical health issues/needs and potential actions to address the issues/needs. Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for promoting health and preventing disease. Since 1979, Healthy People has set and monitored national health objectives to meet a broad range of health needs, encourage collaborations across sectors, guide individuals toward making informed health decisions, and measure health improvement.
Healthy People 2020—an ambitious, yet achievable, 10-year agenda for improving the Nation's health—was launched on December 2, 2010. Healthy People 2020 is the result of a multiyear process that reflects input from a diverse group of individuals and organizations.
