ODPHP Director

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (the Guidelines) provides advice on what to eat and drink to meet nutrient needs, promote health, and prevent disease. To ensure the Guidelines continues to meet the health needs of all, we who support the development process earnestly ask for participation and feedback from those in the fields of nutrition and public health, and – just as importantly – the public at large.

Healthy People 2030, tracks 8 Overall Health and Well-Being Measures (OHMs). Each represents a global outcome measure intended to assess the trajectory toward the Healthy People 2030 vision. OHM-01, the new well-being measure, is expressed as overall life satisfaction and reflects cumulative contributions of health and non-health factors. Now that the baseline for this measure of overall well-being is established, we can begin to evolve our understanding of it, and others like it and explore their implications more fully.

The declaration of the COVID-19  public health emergency officially ends on May 11, 2023. This moment reflects the progress that has been made throughout the acute phase of the pandemic – including decreasing rates of deaths and hospitalizations. Still, many challenges continue. As we transition to the next chapter of public health, it’s imperative that we carry forward and apply all that we have learned from the past few years to ensure optimal recovery, improved health and well-being, equity, and enhanced resilience.

This month RDML Paul Reed introduces the first in a new video “vlog” series exploring individual and community recovery and resilience. In this installment, he sat down with National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chair, Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson for a discussion on the vital role played by the arts and culture in establishing enhanced resilience and aiding us in recovery from stressors such as the pandemic. As Dr. Jackson so eloquently refers to it – the practice of living “more artful lives”.