Sleep Health is one of the New Goals of Healthy People 2020

The Department of Health and Human Services has launched its Healthy People 2020 goals, and among the objectives set forth in its “ambitious, yet achievable” 10-year agenda for improving the nation’s health are substantial improvements in sleep health, respiratory disease outcomes, and levels of tobacco use.

Read Full Document Healthy People 2020: Department of Health and Human Services

Sleep Health
Sleep health is a new topic in the Healthy People initiative. The main focus is on increasing public knowledge of how adequate sleep and treatment of sleep disorders improves health, productivity, wellness, quality of life, and safety on the roads and in the workplace.

The public health burden is substantial, and awareness of the problem is lacking; thus, Healthy People 2020 seeks to provide a “well-coordinated strategy to improve sleep-related health.”

Objectives are to:

• Increase the proportion of persons with symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea who seek medical care (from 25.5% to 28%).
• Reduce the rate of vehicular crashes per 100 million miles traveled that are due to drowsy driving (from 2.7 to 2.1).
• Increase the proportion of students in grades 9-12 who get sufficient sleep, defined as 8 hours or more on an average school night (from 30.9% to 33.2%).
• Increase the proportion of adults who get sufficient sleep, defined as 8 or more hours for those aged 18-21 years, and 7 or more hours for those aged 22 years and older (from 69.6% to 70.9%).

Sleep is one of the three pillars to good health, along with exercise and balanced diet.

Source: HHS