From sabez@u.washington.edu Mon Feb 23 09:38:40 2004 Received: from mxu8.u.washington.edu (mxu8.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.142]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.10+UW03.09/8.12.10+UW03.09) with ESMTP id i1NHceuL122100 for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:38:40 -0800 Received: from mxout5.cac.washington.edu (mxout5.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.135]) by mxu8.u.washington.edu (8.12.11+UW04.02/8.12.11+UW04.02) with ESMTP id i1NHcdhc031547 for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:38:39 -0800 Received: from homer05.u.washington.edu (homer05.u.washington.edu [140.142.15.39]) by mxout5.cac.washington.edu (8.12.11+UW04.02/8.12.11+UW04.02) with ESMTP id i1NHcd66004837 for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:38:39 -0800 Received: from localhost (sabez@localhost) by homer05.u.washington.edu (8.12.10+UW03.09/8.12.10+UW03.09) with ESMTP id i1NHccdR017212 for ; Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:38:39 -0800 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:38:38 -0800 (PST) From: Stephen Bezruchka To: Population Health Forum Subject: Agenda: PHF meeting Tuesday, Feb 24, at 3:30 in H 668C Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Uwash-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIIII, Probability=8%, Report='LINES_OF_YELLING 0.001, SUBJECT_MONTH 0, SUBJECT_MONTH_2 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __CT 0, __TO_MALFORMED_2 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0' Our next Forum meeting is tomorrow at 3:30 to accomodate the schedules of COPHP students, and others. AGENDA -letter writing efforts to draw attention to our declining health status as a country (letter draft below) -Lisa Berkman here on Friday at 2 pm in D 209 (Turner Auditorium) talking about: Social Determinants and the Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century. Interested PHF members can meet with her at noon in H 670. -other events: Global Determinants of Life Expectancy and Child Mortality, Friday, Feb 27 at 10:30 in T 435. -update another school teaching effort, grade 8 class going to Vietnam with PHF presenting preparatory classes on understanding population health in that country -volunteer to gain public speaking ability on population health by practice at the next session **** LETTER DRAFT TO SEND TO CANDIDATES AND ELECTED OFFICIALS Dear Legislator (Candidate) I am writing to you to voice my concern about the health of the people in the United States of America. No doubt you consider the USA the world's richest and most powerful country. But are you aware that by any measure of the health of the people of this country, we are less healthy than people in almost all other rich countries and a few poor ones as well? For example, we rank 26th in terms of life expectancy and 34th in terms of infant mortality rate. (See http://depts.washington.edu/eqhlth/ for more information about these statistics or the Institute of Medicine's 2003 report: The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century). Compared to last year, our health among countries, has declined from ranking 25th to 26th. How much further will it go? Fifty-five years ago, the USA was one of the healthiest countries in the world. But our health, as measured by our life expectancy, has not improved at the same rate as it has in other countries. The data show that we die much younger than we need to. Even if we cured heart disease, our number one killer, we still wouldn't be the healthiest country in the world. In order for the USA to regain its former high-ranking health status among nations (in other words, to improve the overall health and life expectancy of all Americans), we must begin to address the underlying social causes of our poor health. A narrow focus on health care reform or research on specific diseases will not have the broad effect necessary to keep the hundreds of thousands of people in this country every year from dying prematurely. I urge you to examine the social and economic causes that underlie our dismal rankings in the international Health Olympics. If you are elected what will you do to get America healthy again? How do you propose to deal with this national emergency? Respectfully, Jane Buck .