Introduction to human growth and
development
Objectives:
By the end of this lecture, the student will be able to:
[Link] what Healthy People 2030 is and what it is meant to
do.
2. List public health issues defined by Healthy People 2030.
3. Discuss how the health status of a population is measured.
4. State one health issue or goal for each stage of the life cycle.
5. Discuss the role of the health-care worker in achieving Healthy
People 2030 objectives.
6. Discuss the role of the health care worker in worldwide health
improvement.
What is Healthy People 2030
Healthy People 2030 is an evidence-based
10-year report card describing health-care
ac complishments within the United States from the
years 2010 to 2020. It is also a prescription for what
needs to be done between now and the year 2030.
Goals of the Healthy People 2030
The overarching goals of the Healthy People 2030
plan are to engage leadership; enable the nation to
attain health and well-being; eliminate health
disparities; and create social and physical
environments that promote good health, quality of
life, healthy development, and positive health
behaviors across all life stages.
What Healthy People 2030 Does
Healthy People 2030 has a primary focus on achieving health
equity, where every member of the population has an equal
opportunity to be healthy.
Given this health equity focus, objectives fall under these
primary categories:
1. Remove obstacles to health.
2. 2. Address structural and systematic prejudice and
discrimination.
3. Develop policies and practices that promote health equity
including preventive care.
4. Give children and youth opportunities to allow attainment of
the highest level of health and well-being throughout their
lifespan.
5. Create healthy physical, social, and economic environments.
Leading Health Indicators
Health indicators are measurements of health-related
concepts across the lifespan.
The leading health indicators for 2030 are:
1. Access to health services, including increasing the
proportion of persons with medical insurance, and
preventing hospitalizations through treatment in out
patient settings.
Leading Health Indicators…….Cont
2. Clinical preventive services, including monitoring the
population of adults with high blood pressure, tracking
children receiving recommended immunizations, and
monitoring measurements of urban decay and residential
segregation or isolation, which can be barriers to
receiving care.
3. Environmental quality, including overall environmental
qualities, and sociodemographic factors, heat
vulnerability, and general environmental health-related
quality of life (EPA, 2018).
Leading Health Indicators…….Cont
4. Occurrence of injury and violence, including
numbers of firearm-related deaths and other all-cause
unintentional deaths.
5. Maternal, infant, and child health, including
reduction of all infant and maternal deaths.
6. Mental health, including reduction of frequent
mental distress and suicide.
Leading Health Indicators…….Cont
7. Obesity, including reduction of children and
adolescents with obesity through healthy diets and
physical activity.
8. Oral health, including increasing the number of
people older than 2 years who use the oral-care health
system each year.
9. Reproductive and sexual health, including
encouraging sexually active adolescents who use any
method of contraception at first intercourse, and
reducing new HIV diagnoses.
Leading Health Indicators…….Cont
10. Social determinants, including increasing the
number of fourth grade students reading at or above
proficiency, reducing poverty rates, reducing
household food insecurity, and reducing proportions
of households spending more than 30% of income on
housing.
11. Substance abuse, including reducing overall drug
overdose death rate, and reducing alcohol use
disorders.
12. Tobacco, including reducing use of any tobacco
products by adolescents
Determinants of health
Determinants of health are the range of social,
economic, and environmental factors that influence
health status.
These can include individual behavior and biological
and genetic factors.
Behavior and biology are interrelated. A disease
affects biology, but behaviors can make
a person susceptible or resistant to a disease.
Social and physical environments
impact on behavior.
Personal choices and the social and physical
environments surrounding individuals can shape
behaviors. The social and physical environments
include all factors that affect the life of individuals,
positively or negatively, many of which may not be
under their immediate or direct control.
Social environment
Social environment includes interactions with family,
friends, coworkers, and others in the community. It also
encompasses social institutions, such as law
enforcement, the workplace, places of worship, and
schools. Housing, public transportation, and the
presence or absence of violence in the community are
among other components of the social environment.
Social environment….Cont
The social environment has a profound effect
on the health of the individual and the larger
community and is unique because of cultural
customs, language, and personal, religious, or
spiritual beliefs. At the same time, individuals
and their behaviors contribute to the quality of
the social environment.
Physical environment
Physical environment is that which can be seen,
touched, heard, smelled, and tasted. However, the
physical environment also contains less tangible
elements, such as radiation, ozone, or chemical
toxins. The physical environment can harm individual
and community health, especially when individuals
and communities are exposed to toxic substances,
irritants, infectious agents, and physical hazards in
homes, schools, and worksites.
The health status
The health status can be measured by birth and
death rates, life expectancy, morbidity from
specific disease, access to health care, and
health-insurance coverage, as well as other
factors. These factors are reported in
publications such as Healthy People Review or
Health
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the average number of years a
person born in a given year is expected to live. In
1900, the life expectancy was 47.3 years. In 2019, the
life expectancy was 80.3 years. These statistics show
definite improvement; however, in 2019, many
countries had better life expectancy rates than the
United States.
Life-expectancy statistics from other countries may
reflect the quality of health care in that country or the
endemic prevalence of high infection, mortality, or
HIV/AIDS infections.
Prenatal and Infant Health
Maternal and infant health is the core of the health status of the
next generation.
The leading areas of progress between the years 2010 and
2020 include reducing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
with the back-to-sleep educational program that urges parents
to place infants on their backs rather than on their abdomen
when putting their infants down to sleep, and promoting the
use of folic acid supplements early in pregnancy to reduce
congenital mal formations such as spina bifida. Guidelines for
“baby friendly” hospitals have been established to increase
breastfeeding during the first days of life
Childhood Health
Children with health issues should receive any age-
specific treatment and be on track and ready for
school. Health issues should be added to school
curricula, teachers should be well informed, and
school nurses should be available in all schools.
Completion of high school should be encouraged to
provide the education necessary for under standing
the importance of healthy lifestyle choices.
Childhood Health……cont
Encouraging school attendance, home schooling
during prolonged illness, and school counseling
services aid in achieving these goals.
School health services were established more than
100 years ago to reduce absenteeism caused by
communicable diseases. Current school health
programs reflect the concept that physical health and
mental health are related to academic and social
success. School nurses assess development, screen for
specific health problems, refer to community
agencies, and provide immunization information.
Adolescent and Young-Adult Health
In 2017, the adolescent death rate was 51.5 per
100,000 (CDC, 2017).
Indicators for health in this age group focus on
preventing risk behaviors and reducing rates of
disease onset rather than reducing the effects of
current disease states. Actions such as reducing
tobacco and alcohol use, encouraging a healthy diet,
increasing physical activity, and preventing risky
sexual behaviors can have long-term beneficial
effects
Older adults health
Goals for older adults include improving health,
function, and quality of life through access to
preventive health. Objectives include in creasing
physical activity, increasing overall heart health,
reducing use of inappropriate medications, reduction
of hospital admissions for falls, pneumonia, urinary
tract infections, and diabetes.
Geriatric adult health
Goals for the geriatric phase of life include reducing
the number of illnesses and deaths related to vaccine-
preventable illnesses by increasing the number of
adults over age 65 who receive annual vaccines
against influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia,
reducing the number of hip fractures (more than 75%
of which occur in elderly females), increasing
identification and treatment of chronic kidney
disease, and increasing the availability of diagnostic
tools that can decrease the number of undiagnosed
dementia cases.
ROLE OF THE HEALTH-CARE
WORKER IN ACHIEVING HEALTHY
PEOPLE 2030 GOALS
Health-care workers play an important role in helping
to achieve the goals of Healthy People 2030 at all
phases of the life cycle by:
• Increasing the use of prenatal services, which
reduces the occurrence of low-birth weight newborns
and prematurity.
• Promoting breastfeeding, which increases the health
of the newborn and bonding be tween mother and
infant.
ROLE OF THE HEALTH-CARE
WORKER IN ACHIEVING HEALTHY
PEOPLE 2030 GOALS………Cont
•Educating the school-age child about nutrition, diet
and exercise, smoking and drug use, and healthy
lifestyles.
• Promoting health through employer-sponsored
programs.
• Providing health-education services to patients in
managed-care organizations.
• Identifying health risks through screening programs,
which can lead to early diagnosis and treatment of
disease.
• Encouraging older adults to participate in at least
one organized health-promotion activity.
Conclusion
The current global targets to be achieved by the year
2030 include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger;
ensuring primary education for all children;
promoting gender equity and empowering women;
reducing child mortality; improving maternal health;
combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and
other major diseases; ensuring environmental
sustainability; and continuing to develop a global
partnership to achieve these goals.
References
Leifer G, Fleck E. (2022). Growth and Development. Across
the lifespan. (3rd ed). A health Promotion Focus. Elsevier
Publication. Chapter 1 Pages (1- 12)
Thanks