Title: Healthy Communities Act of 2018
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Healthy Communities Act of 2018
This bill amends the Public Health Service Act to require the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to base recommendations regarding the effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical preventive services on data for the respective populations, including health disparity populations. (Health disparity populations have a significant disparity in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, or survival rates as compared to the general population.)

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5511 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5511

      To amend the Public Health Service Act to require that the 
recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force on 
the effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical 
 preventive services be based on data for the respective populations, 
                        and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 13, 2018

  Mr. Evans introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
      To amend the Public Health Service Act to require that the 
recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force on 
the effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical 
 preventive services be based on data for the respective populations, 
                        and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Healthy Communities Act of 2018''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Despite marked reductions in health disparities 
        following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (Public Law 
        111-148), racial and ethnic disparities in medical status and 
        access to health care persist in the United States.
            (2) According to the Centers for Disease Control, from 2010 
        to 2014, breast cancer mortality was 41 percent higher among 
        African-American women than White women.
            (3) According to the Alzheimer's Association, among 
        individuals in the United States who are over 65 years of age, 
        African-American individuals are about twice as likely to have 
        Alzheimer's disease, and Hispanic individuals are about 1\1/2\ 
        times as likely as White individuals.
            (4) The National Institutes of Health finds that African 
        Americans, despite making up 13 percent of the population of 
        the United States, account for about 35 percent of individuals 
        with kidney failure in the United States.
            (5) According to research published in the Journal 
        Frontiers in Bioscience, in the United States, African American 
        men are 1.6 times as likely to develop, and 2 times as likely 
        to die from, prostate cancer when compared to White men.
            (6) Underutilization of preventive health services remains 
        a barrier to reducing the chronic disease burden in the United 
        States, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities.
            (7) The Surgeon General of the Public Health Service has 
        stated that ``Reducing disparities in health will give everyone 
        a chance to live a healthy life and improve the quality of life 
        for all Americans.''.

SEC. 3. BASING RECOMMENDATIONS OF UNITED STATES PREVENTIVE SERVICES 
              TASK FORCE ON DATA FOR THE RESPECTIVE POPULATIONS.

    Section 915(a) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 299b-
4(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
            ``(8) Basing recommendations on data for respective 
        populations.--In making and updating recommendations on the 
        effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of 
        clinical preventive services, as described in paragraph (1), 
        the Task Force shall base such recommendations on data for the 
        respective populations, including health disparity populations 
        (as defined in section 464z-3(d)).''.
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