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STATE HEALTH POLICY TO EMPHASIZE DISEASE PREVENTION

Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced the first steps in a multi-year plan to make New York the healthiest state in the nation through a comprehensive disease prevention program.

 AFor years, the health care debate has focused almost exclusively on institutions that deal with various health problems, such as HMOs, hospitals and nursing homes,” Governor Spitzer said. “By shifting focus to the prevention of disease, we can significantly improve public health and help bring exploding health care costs under control.”

The federal Centers for Disease Control have found that half of all deaths are linked to unhealthy behavior and unsafe environments, including smoking, alcohol abuse, poor diet, physical inactivity and exposure to toxic substances such as lead, pesticides and air pollution.

These and other public health problems are addressed in the Governor’s new AHealthy Living, Healthy Environment Agenda, a multi-year effort to focus more attention and resources on disease prevention. The agenda includes the following:

• New public health campaigns targeting cancer, diabetes, obesity, asthma, stroke and heart disease and depression;
• A new program requiring Body Mass Index reporting in schools;
• New legislation requiring healthier school lunches;   
• New anti-smoking initiatives, including aggressively promoting tobacco cessation treatment to all Medicaid, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus enrollees;
• Expanded access to cervical cancer vaccine;
• Enhanced programs to combat HIV/AIDS in minority communities;
• A directive that all state agencies, including OGS, DOCS, OMH and OMRDD, make the elimination of trans-fat a condition of future food service contracts; 
• A new program to improve the quality of provider skills in mammography interpretation, colorectal screening and infection control;
• Implementation of a prenatal/postpartum home visitation program for high-risk communities;
• Expanded use of incentives to encourage physical fitness by state employees; 
• Expanded childhood lead poisoning prevention efforts;
• Creation of a new Pollution Prevention Institute in the Department of Environmental Conservation to assist businesses in reducing the use of toxic chemicals; 
• A new “Green Cleaning” initiative that will help reduce exposure to harmful chemicals in state facilities, schools and worksites; and
• Administrative directives encouraging the use of non-toxic pest control at state facilities, schools and other institutions.

 
In addition to these disease prevention and environmental measures, the agenda also includes a concerted effort to address disease infection control in hospitals and nursing homes and other institutions. This effort includes stockpiling of anti-viral medications and public health emergency preparedness exercises across the state.

Funding for the initiatives (more than $200 million) is included in the 2007-2008 Executive Budget Proposal. The Executive Budget also funds an expansion of the Child Health Plus program to provide all of the nearly 400,000 uninsured children in the state with access to affordable health insurance and streamlining eligibility to help ensure that more than 900,000 uninsured adults and children who are eligible for Medicaid and Family Health Plus are able to get and keep this health coverage. 

Dr. Richard Daines, who has been nominated as State Health Commissioner, said: "Prevention is key to our approach to public health problems, from vaccination to prevent cervical cancer, to identifying homes with a lead paint problem before children are poisoned, to ensuring prenatal and postpartum care and linkage to services to our most vulnerable mothers and children, to ensuring access to emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy.  These proposals in the budget are a downpayment on the health of all New Yorkers."

Donald Distasio, CEO of the American Cancer Society Eastern Division, said: "We applaud the Governor on his aggressive proposals to prevent and fight cancer, a major killer and cause of premature mortality in the state.  The quality assurance proposals for mammography and the promotional campaign on colorectal cancer screening address critical gaps in our current cancer screening efforts.  Both vaccination against HPV and stronger tobacco control campaigns can prevent cancer from occurring, which is obviously the ultimate in cancer prevention."
                                                                                       
Steven Breyman, PhD, Executive Director of the Citizens Environmental Coalition, said: “Prevention of disease is finally being given the attention it deserves. Pollution and exposure to toxic substances have been linked to a number of serious illnesses and conditions -- from cancer and asthma to learning disabilities and birth defects. We need state policies to be focused on preventing toxic exposure rather than on just treatment. Pollution prevention is disease prevention.”