ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Lost in Health Care Vitriol Is Need for Promoting Wellness

Saturday, April 02, 2011

Lost in Health Care Vitriol Is Need for Promoting Wellness

By Susan Defrancesco And Shiraz I. Mishra
Public health researchers
          There are congressional battles waging over the Affordable Health Care Act, the nation's new health care reform law.
        One of its unique and historic features is its focus on prevention, bringing prevention and wellness to the forefront of our health discussions. The act requires a dialogue about how we reform our health care system to keep people well, not just make them well once they are sick.
        A potential casualty of the current federal battles is funding for prevention programs, policies and research — to the detriment of the public's health.
        Interestingly, in a 2004 survey conducted by Research!America, New Mexicans submitted that the U.S. spends too little (one cent per health care dollar) on public health research. The majority of New Mexico residents surveyed favored specific prevention programs and policies, such as requiring minimum physical-education standards in all schools, reducing pollution and contamination from factories and businesses, eliminating the sale of unhealthy food in public schools and raising the tax on alcohol.
        New Mexicans also provided input about prevention in listening sessions held around the state by the University of New Mexico Prevention Research Center. Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1995, the center engages in evidence-based prevention research to improve community and population health and well-being through community engagement, communication, training and evaluation, as well as translation of these activities into programs, practice and policy.
        New Mexicans at the listening sessions represented a broad range of organizations, including governmental and nongovernmental organizations and tribal communities involved in work related to health, safety, medicine, alternative medicine, planning, education, law, social service, government and transportation. It was clearly recognized that a National Prevention Strategy will fail if prevention initiatives are not adequately funded.
        According to participants, central to the National Prevention Strategy's success is inclusiveness — how successfully it meets the needs and reflects the input of individuals and communities representing the "grass roots," including those who are often marginalized by society. These include youths, elderly people, people with disabilities and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer questioning and intersex community.
        Participants also insisted that the strategy not impart directives from the "top down," but have its foundation in the community.
        Participants from Native communities emphasized the importance of addressing the diverse needs of New Mexico residents, the urgency of eliminating existing disparities that have a devastating effect on the health of their communities and the need to value traditional practices.
        Finally, participants tasked educators with teaching students to think about prevention in these broader terms to facilitate changes that must take place as we move forward.
        By preventing disease in the first place and promoting wellness, we safeguard livelihoods and save health care costs. Can't the battles in Congress be won for all by listening to and supporting the people who have the knowledge and dedication to make prevention and our health care money work to keep us healthy?

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