On December 10, HHS released a new subset of objectives and a new set of health measures as part of the Healthy People 2030 initiative: Leading Health Indicators (LHIs) and Overall Health and Well-Being Measures (OHMs). Together, LHIs and OHMs will help public health and health care professionals, businesses, policymakers, national organizations, and community leaders set priorities and track nationwide progress toward improving health and well-being.
Check out this video of ADM Brett P. Giroir, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health, introducing the LHIs and OHMs.
Leading Health Indicators
LHIs are a small subset of high-priority Healthy People 2030 core objectives. As a set, LHIs cover the life span, highlighting critical public health issues that affect people at different life stages.
Many LHIs address the leading causes of death and disease in the United States — including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. But compared with LHIs in past iterations of the initiative, Healthy People 2030 LHIs have an increased focus on upstream factors — like behaviors that affect health and the conditions in people’s environments. In line with this focus, the new LHIs address social determinants of health, health disparities, and health equity.
While Healthy People 2030 has hundreds of objectives spanning a wide variety of topics, the 23 LHIs will help health professionals focus their resources and efforts on high-priority public health issues to improve health and well-being for all people.
Overall Health and Well-Being Measures
OHMs are broad, global outcome measures that will help us assess the nation’s progress toward achieving the Healthy People 2030 vision.
OHMs are similar to Healthy People 2020’s Foundation Health Measures, but there are fewer OHMs and they include a new measure — on well-being. The 8 OHMs also include measures on life expectancy, activity limitation, disability, and health status.
To see a visual representation of the relationships between the Healthy People 2030 vision, OHMs, LHIs, and objectives, check out our graphic.
Learn More
Watch this video of CAPT Paul Reed, MD, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, sharing more details about the LHIs and OHMs.
To keep track of the LHIs and OHMs, sign up for email updates. And if you’d like to help us promote the LHIs and OHMs, check out our promotion toolkit.
