Healthy California
Let’s Get Healthy California initiative is aimed at providing the communities of California to get access to ample health facilities, educational facilities, and to strive to foster and improve the healthy lifestyle of the communities. It comprises of six crucial goals and their indicators such as Living well, Healthy beginnings, Health system redesigning, End of life, Healthy community creation, and decreasing the healthcare cost (www.healthypeople.gov, 2020). The Healthy People 2020 initiative comprises of 42 areas and topics along with its 1200 plus indicators that are also called objectives (www.cdph.ca.gov, 2020). This essay succinctly emboldens the continuum of healthy living across California.
A large scale program under the umbrella of Let’s get healthy California includes its “Innovation Challenge Program” which opts to foster healthy living, educating people about health issues and healthcare, sharing ideas, and improving healthcare services for the communities. The selected indicator is Obesity in childhood and adults. The statistics show that the obesity rate in adults age 20 or more in 2005 to 2009 was 33.9% whereas, between 2013-2016, it was increased up to 38.6%. on the other hand, it was also observed that males had fewer chances of obesity than females. Furthermore, the obesity rate among the adults was 48% in non-Hispanic black people, 44.9% in Hispanic people, and 37.1% in non-Hispanic white people as per 2013-2016 statistics. On the other hand, obesity in kids between the ages of 2 to 19 years was 16.1% in 2005-2008 that has now increased to 17.8% (www.healthypeople.gov, 2020). In 2017, adults have the obesity rate of 26.4%, and the target of Let’s Get Healthy California innovative challenge program is to reduce it down to 11% by 2022. Similarly, 9.2% of adults in 2012 were suffering from diabetes and as per 2018 statistics, now the current rate is 10.4% and the target is now 7% in 2018 (letsgethealthy.ca.gov, 2020). The statistics show little success in achieving the goals of the program. Still, the improvement in results is needed in California. The results are not aligned to live well and spend a healthy life free from physical or mental disease because obesity leads to diabetes and other diseases (letsgethealthy.ca.gov, 2020). Hence, the statistics have a minor indication of improvement in the indicator of obesity so there is still more effort required to achieve the overall wellness goals of the community.
It is evident from the statistics and facts mentioned above that even though the innovative challenge program has many other goals related to other areas, the indicator of obesity issue is still alarming and only a little improvement has been evident that needs proper efforts to increase its effectiveness in dealing obesity.