Healthy People 2020

There is an excellent initiative from the US Dept of Health & Human Services.

The ‘Process’ Section of the site suggests that this department understands how post-bureaucratic engagement can deliver better results, far more cheaply and democratically than the traditional top-down bureaucratic model:

“The Healthy People process is inclusive; its strength is directly tied to collaboration. The development process strives to maximize transparency, public input and stakeholder dialogue to ensure that Healthy People 2020 is relevant to diverse public health needs and seizes opportunities to achieve its goals. Since its inception, Healthy People has become a broad-based, public engagement initiative with thousands of citizens helping to shape it at every step along the way.”

This commitment is more than vague enthusiasm: there is a dedicated online comment system, and three public meetings. We might perhaps want to see a slightly more engaging interface, and some data put up to give us something to work with, but this is a step in the right direction.