Discuss Healthy People 2020 and how it relates to school health.

Discuss three initiatives

that could be implemented in a school health program to meet these objectives.

The Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives to enable

improvement of the health of all the Americans. The main vision of Healthy People 2020 is to

establish a society in which all people live long, healthy lives. The missions of the Health People

2020 include identification of the nationwide health improvement priorities and increase of

awareness of the public and proper understanding of the health determinants of health, disease,

and disability and the available opportunities for progress. It also has a mission of providing

measurable objectives and goals that could be applied at the national, state, and local levels. The

other mission is to enable the identification of research, evaluation, and data collection needs.

Healthy People 2020 has several goals, including attainment of high-quality, longer lives free of

preventable disease, disability, injury, and any premature death. The other goal is to achieve

health equity, eliminate health disparities, and enable improvement of the health of all groups. It

also has the goal of creating a social and physical environment that promotes good health for all.

It also aims at promoting quality life, healthy development, and healthy behaviors across all

stages of life (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).

Healthy People 2020 significantly relates to school health. School health aims at ensuring

that the life of the health seekers, mainly students are promoted to ensure that students live a

high-quality life free from any diseases and disability. The school health also aims at establishing

an environment that promotes the physical and social wellbeing of the students to enable healthy

development and healthy behaviors. The implementation of the objectives of Healthy People

2020 by the school nurses at the school setting will assist in enhancing the wellbeing of the

students and their general health (Broussard, 2017).

 Several initiatives could be implemented in a school health program to enable the

meeting of the Healthy People 2020. These include proper and timely immunization of students

against infectious diseases to prevent disease outbreaks within the school setting. The second

intervention includes proper delivery of health education to the students to ensure that they are

well informed about the healthy behaviors necessary to promote their well-being, including a

healthy diet and proper physical exercise. The third intervention involves obtaining the health

resources necessary for the students' delivery of care services to ensure that the students can

access health care services as per need (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2014).

References

Broussard, L. (2017). School nursing. Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing, 9(3), 77-83.

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/educational-and-community-based-

programs/objectives

US Department of Health and Human Services. (2014). Healthy people 2020 topics and

objectives. Washington, DC.