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Did you know that the United States has a higher rate of infant mortality than Japan (CIA, n.d.)? Or, as Dr. Beilenson states in this week’s media presentation, that “your zip code that you live in makes more difference in your health and well-being than the genetic code that you’re born with?” What causes these differences in health outcomes?

To effectively develop policies and programs to improve population health, it is useful to use a framework to guide the process. Different organizations and governmental agencies (for example, Healthy People 2020) have created a variety of such frameworks, which establish measures for assessing population health. These measures frequently are derived from the examination of epidemiologic data, which include key measures of population health such as mortality, morbidity, life expectancy, etc. Within each measure are a variety of progress indicators that use epidemiologic data to assess improvement or change.

Apply a framework developed by Kindig, Asada, and Booske (2008) to a population health issue of interest to you. This framework includes five key health determinants that should be considered when developing policies and programs to improve population health: access to health care, individual behavior, social environment, physical environment, and genetics.