What Is Healthy People 2020?

Public health programs have a significant impact on public policy (Brownson et al., 2009). The public at large can benefit from the policy, laws and regulations enacted to protect them from unsafe products or environmental hazards (Brownson et al., 2009). Public health policy, in turn, has an impact on health outcomes. As stated by Brownson et al., “public health policy, in the form of laws, regulations, and guidelines, has a profound effect on health status” (2009).
Additionally, the government can increase positive health outcomes with the use of government resources to help identify and quantify areas of concern. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services examined risks and factors contributing to disease.

The six environmental themes are outdoor air quality; surface and ground water quality; toxic substances and hazardous wastes; homes and communities; infrastructure and surveillance; and global environmental health (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). One of those themes is outdoor air quality. Poor air quality links to cancer, premature death, and long-term respiratory and cardiovascular system damage (United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2015). According to a study from the journal Nature, 3.3 million people died from causes related to outdoor air pollution in 2010 (Randall, 2015). Of the fifteen countries with the most deaths attributed to outdoor air pollution, the United States ranked number seven in the world, with less than 70,000 deaths per year (Randall, 2015). China was the highest with over 1.3 million deaths per year, India was second with over 600,000 deaths per year (Randall, 2015). The other twelve countries on the list range from just over 100,000 deaths per year to 25,000 deaths per year. China is paying an environmental and health price for years of industrial development with no oversight, utilizing a policy of “industrializing first and cleaning up later” (Saikawa, 2014). Now there is a new urgency within the government to declare war on pollution (Saikawa, 2014). China is an example of a government that was less intrusive, but with very negative environmental and public health