Healthy North Carolina 2020: About
Healthy NC 2020 serves as our state's health improvement plan, which will address and improve our state's most pressing health priorities. Our goal is to be one of the healthiest states in the nation. This will require a concerted effort from policy-makers, health professionals, state and local government, insurers, business and community leaders, advocacy organizations, consumer groups, the faith community and North Carolina’s residents.
Healthy NC 2020 is a set of objectives through which we hope to influence health and community leaders across North Carolina to work collaboratively to achieve dramatic and measurable health improvements for all North Carolina residents.
Health improvement efforts will focus on reducing and preventing chronic diseases and injuries. Chronic diseases and injuries are responsible for more than two-thirds of all deaths in North Carolina, or about 65,000 deaths each year. Cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease make up the top five causes of death in the state1.
The most practical approach to address these health problems is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. Investing more heavily in prevention can save lives, reduce disability, improve quality of life, and in some cases reduce costs.
Reduction and prevention efforts for Healthy North Carolina 2020 are represented by 13 focus areas and 40 objectives. The focus areas and objectives allow communities and organizations around the state to identify and take action on measures that will have the biggest impact on improving population health.
Everyone plays a role in making North Carolina healthier.
- Sign the resolution to demonstrate your support for improving health in North Carolina.
- Overview of HNC 2020 (PDF, 173 KB)
- For additional information about Healthy North Carolina 2020, please contact us.
- For more information about the burden of chronic disease in North Carolina, please visit the website for the Chronic Disease and Injury Section.
References
1. North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health, State Center for Health Statistics. Table A: Leading Causes of Death* by Age Group North Carolina Residents, 2015. Accessed June 12, 2017.
Healthy NC 2020 Pages
Last Modified: May 24, 2019