Group Seeks to Improve Nonmedical Aspects of Health in the United States

KEYWORDS:
• HEALTH STATUS
• HEALTH STATUS DISPARITIES
• HEALTHCARE DISPARITIES
• PUBLIC HEALTH
• SOCIAL CLASS
• SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS
• UNITED STATES

Because a number of factors outside the medical system have considerable effects on health, experts are working to identify nonmedical strategies to improve the well-being of those living in the United States. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a national, independent, and nonpartisan group called the Commission to Build a Healthier America to investigate how factors such as education, environment, income, and housing influence personal choices that affect health (http://www.commissiononhealth.org/).

“For reasons that don't appear to have much to do with health care, there is a big gap between how healthy we are and how healthy we could be,” said the comission’s co-chair, Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, at the commission's launch in February. In 2 years, the commission hopes to recommend both short-term and long-term strategies to help improve health in the …