This publication is part of the National Academy of Medicine's Vital Directions for Health and Health Care Initiative, which called on more than 150 leading researchers, scientists, and policy makers from across the United States to assess and provide expert guidance on 19 priority issues for U.S. health policy. The views presented in this publication and others in the series are those of the authors and do not represent formal consensus positions of the NAM, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, or the authors' organizations. Learn more: nam.edu/VitalDirections.
More than any other factor, our health is determined by the physical, social, cultural, and economic environments in which we live. Recognizing this, as far back as 1988, the Institute of Medicine (IOM; now called the National Academy of Medicine) challenged public health professionals to “collectively” take on the task of “assuring the conditions in which people can be healthy.”1 Public health professionals widely agree, and for more than 30 years, we have been asking and reasking ourselves: How do we do that? (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 29, 2020: e1–e2. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306011 )
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