Health promotion programs within the Navy Environmental Health Center : evolution and impact

Abstract

In 1986, DoD established aformal health promotion policy,but it was not until 1992 that DoN components began to comply and implement health promotion programs. In 1994, Navy Medicine appointed the Navy Environmental Health Center (NEHC) as the Health Promotion Program Manager. In 1998, due primarily to their population-based approach to health care delivery, NEHC was appointed the Program Manager for the Clinical Epidemiology Program (CEP). This study examines the resource and programmatic role that NEHC has played in implementing health promotion programs in Navy Medicine, particularly the CEP. Interviews and a review of the literature on health promotion and clinical epidemiology were undertaken to ascertain the significance and implications of health promotion programs in relation to the overall health care strategy of Navy Medicine. This thesis concludes that several problems affect implementation of health promotion, including the inability to capture the total cost of the program and identify cost savings and cost avoidance; the absence of a reliable benchmark of the health status of selected populations; and the absence of data to measure the efficacy of the program. Continued implementation and support of the CEP may permit Navy Medicine to document the significance of health promotion in enhancing population health and identify cost savings and cost avoidance directly related to health promotion efforts