American Journal of Health Promotion

We have assembled a number of resources to give you information that can make you more effective in your advocacy efforts. Brief descriptions and links for these resources are below. We will continue to add resources to this page, so be sure to check back.

Improving the health and well-being of the United States
Read How Health Promotion Advocates Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Promotion Michael O'Donnell would change the health of the United States by 2025.

Building Health Promotion into National Health Policy
The latest slide presentation by Health Promotion Advocates Chairman Michael O'Donnell. This presentation is available to help advocates explain the health and financial impact of health promotion to members of Congress and describe the legislation that we are advocating.

Briefing Document. This briefing document for Senator Lugar's Health promotion FIRST (Funding Integrated Research, Synthesis and Training) Act describes:

The goal of our advocacy efforts,
A definition of health promotion,
The impact of lifestyle on health,
The financial impact of health promotion,
Current government policy toward health promotion,
Perceptions of the public and Congress about the importance of prevention,
What needs to be done to build health promotion into the national agenda,
Our plan the support we are requesting from Congress, and
A list of the organizations endorsing this effort.

Institute of Medicine Report The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is an independent think tank which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, and is often asked to advise Congress on health policy issues. The IOM has released a number of studies related to health promotion. One of their recent studies titled Promoting Health: Intervention Strategies from Social and Behavior Research (Smedley, B., Syme, SL, Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, 2000. Washington, DC), recognizes that the vast majority of the nation's health research resources have been directed toward biomedical research endeavors which cannot address the most significant challenge to improving the public's health in the new century. This report goes on to say that behavioral and social interventions therefore offer great promise to reduce disease morbidity and mortality, but as yet their potential to improve the public's health has been poorly tapped. In late 2000, the IOM started working on another report which is intended to provide a blueprint utilizing all available strategies, including health promotion, for protecting the health of the nation. Background information on this report is available at the Institute of Medicine site.

Advocacy tips If you would like some tips on how to be a more effective advocate we suggest you review our 7 Tips for Effective advocacy

National Health Expenditures Tables
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/statistics/nhe/default.asp
This web-site of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides detailed data on health care expenditures for the nation.

Research!America
http://www.researchamerica.org/
This web site describes the work of Research!America, a non-profit organization dedicated to making health and medical research a higher priority.

Tobacco Free Kids
http://tobaccofreekids.org/organization/
This web site describes the work of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, a non-profit organization dedicated to freeing America's youth from tobacco and to creating a healthier environment through a broad range of educational, advocacy and community organizing efforts.

Behavior Risk Factors by State
http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/
This site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides detailed descriptions of health risk factors for each state.

Global Rankings of Healthy Life Expectancy Rankings
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-life.html

This report issued by the World Health Organization ranks the United States as 24th in the World in terms of the Disability Adjusted Life Expectations (DALE), despite spending far more on medical care than any other nation in the world.

Definitions
The terms disease prevention, health promotion, and wellness are often used interchangeably. See how we define them and why we call ourselves Health Promotion Advocates.

Tools & Resources