The burden of these behaviors falls in greatest proportion on older adults, young children, racial and ethnic minority groups and citizens who have less education and income. Emerging research demonstrates that these lifestyle factors can be modified to improve health, improve the quality of life and reduce medical care costs. We the Congress of the United States do resolve to harness the powers of the federal government to enhance the science required to help people improve their lifestyle practices and build these lifestyle improvement programs into our health care system, schools, workplaces and communities. This letter would make reference to current important efforts such as Healthy People 2010, the Leading Health Indicators, efforts to End Health Disparities and the Institute of Medicine report. This resolution would be advocated by the 800 or so people who attend the Art and Science of Health Promotion meeting when we visit Capitol Hill the afternoon of February 15, 2001.
Resolutions are sometimes trivial and other times set the stage for a major legislative agenda.
On the other hand, the current ongoing effort to double the NIH budget over 5 years was started with a resolution. As soon as we receive a response from the DHHS on what is required to develop the science of health promotion, we would prepare legislation to increase funding for health promotion research and dissemination of best practice and best science information on health promotion. Our hope is to have this legislation passed by the end of 2001 calendar year. Passing this legislation after the conference will require us to mount a second advocacy effort. The next focus area might be to incorporate health promotion into Medicare or Medicaid, school settings, managed care, community health departments or some other area.