AAMC Reporter: July 2005

Vice Admiral Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, U.S. Surgeon General, Department of Health and Human Services

Viewpoint: "The Year of the Healthy Child"

The stability, prosperity, and future of our nation rest upon the health and well-being of our children. Your efforts have helped lead to important gains in pediatric health. Today, more than 80 percent of our nation's 70 million children are in very good or excellent health. Childhood immunizations are at an all-time high. Our children are less likely to smoke and less likely to give birth as teenagers. These are important gains in pediatric health, but we still have some troubling problems.

This year I am working with partners in the public and private sectors to take a hard look at ways to improve the health of children, both domestically and internationally. I have declared 2005 "The Year of the Healthy Child." This agenda includes all aspects of a child's life —body, mind, and spirit—starting with prenatal care and going through the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence.

For example, 16 percent of American kids are overweight, which impacts their long-term health. We must teach our children to enjoy healthy foods and be physically active for at least 60 minutes a day. This includes not only sports but also simple activities like taking the stairs, riding their bikes, and just getting outside and playing.

Each year 4 million American children have asthma attacks, a leading cause of emergency room visits and missed schooldays. One in five schools in America has indoor air quality problems. I recently convened the first-ever Surgeon General's Workshop on Healthy Indoor Environment and began collaborations with engineers, designers, architects, builders, and public health professionals to improve the air in schools and other buildings across America.

These issues and many more—including on-time immunizations, child abuse prevention, oral health, drug and alcohol use prevention, and tobacco use prevention—are part of "The Year of the Healthy Child." This is the most comprehensive agenda ever set forward by a U.S. Surgeon General for a single year.

I need your help to continue achieving the objectives of this ambitious agenda. One key to enriching the health of children is to improve health literacy.

Health literacy is the ability of an individual to access, understand, and use health-related information and services to make appropriate health decisions. Right now low health literacy is a problem throughout our nation.

As a trauma surgeon, there were times when I felt that my impact was minimal. My colleagues and I would save a life, which was a wonderful outcome, but our patient would not necessarily continue to be healthy or safe. At the hospital, we would use the best science to treat problems that were largely preventable. This included the patients who harmed themselves by never exercising, by eating an unhealthy diet, by smoking, or by engaging in risky or violent activities. But when those patients awoke after life-saving surgery, there was often no education about how to avoid a return trip to the emergency room or the surgeon's table. I started teaching interns, residents, and my medical students at the University of Arizona about the importance of following up with patients to teach them how to stop repeating the unhealthy behaviors that eventually led them to the door of an emergency room.

Today's medical school curriculum can do so much to improve health literacy. Health literacy can be further integrated into disciplines—including scholarly medical practice, communication in medicine, and medical professionalism. This is occurring, with support from AAMC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and others. Techniques to help practitioners assess and improve their patients' health literacy are being reinforced throughout all phases of physician education—in medical school, during residency training, and as a part of continuing medical education courses.

Medical colleges are the future of medicine. We must teach our students to take technical knowledge and translate it into language that people can understand, with practical applications they can explain to patients in ways that make good health achievable. We must train our students to move between the realms of science and the everyday reality of patient care.

More than any other aspect of life, health impacts everything in our lives, from how children learn, to how productive business can be, to how we maintain our well-being and independence into our senior years. As academic medical leaders, you are helping people to achieve and maintain health.

During my years as a professor at the University of Arizona, and as an instructor for medical and public health courses at various universities and colleges, I had the opportunity to work with many of you. As I now serve at the national level, I am constantly seeing the results of your dedication. I hope to continue our collaborations and friendships during my tenure as Surgeon General. Through the AAMC Reporter, I plan to keep you updated about the ongoing activities of the Office of the Surgeon General. I will look to you and to AAMC to provide input about how my colleagues and I at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can support your efforts. Thank you, and keep up the good work.

For more information about "The Year of the Healthy Child" and health literacy, please visit www.surgeongeneral.gov.

Contact Us    © 1995-2008 AAMC    Terms and Conditions    Privacy Statement