BY RACHEL CHEESEMAN

PORTLAND- The Oregon Health Policy Board met Tuesday to discuss, among other things, the goals and recommendations of the Health Improvement Plan Committee.

The committee came forward with six broad goals.

Their primary goal was to improve social and economic factors affecting public health. The committee recommended that the Oregon Health Authority request a Governor’s Executive Order to create a council that would “monitor health equity in all statewide policies.”

The purpose of the council is to ensure that all the policies created look at the policy through an “equity lens,” according to committee member Lila Wickham.

Another recommendation to further this goal was to require Health Impact Statements for publicly funded building and transportation projects.

Committee member Joe Robertson called such a report unnecessary, saying that health factors were already taken into account when working on projects but that requiring a report might have negative unintended consequences.

“This is an area where I think we’re doing very well,” he said. “I just wonder if there’s really the return on the investment in this particular area.”

The second goal mentioned was to see an increase in investment by private and public entities in prevention and public health by increasing funding for public health.

Wickham pointed out that Oregon was currently number 41 in the nation for investing in public health and added that money invested in prevention actually saves money in the long run.

Committee member Nita Werner said she wanted to see dollar numbers and figures attached to the claim so the OHPB could be confident in the investment.

“I understand that prevention saves money in the long run,” she said, “but for the first couple of years it’s going to hurt other places in the budget.”

The committee also recommended that all counties and the state public health division seek accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board by 2015.

The costs associated with the accreditation process, such as those associated with preparation for accreditation, as well as application fees, were not discussed.

A final recommendation for furthering this goal was an additional request for an executive order “requiring state agencies to implement and monitor wellness policies designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity, and chronic disease self-management, support breastfeeding, and reduce tobacco use and sugar sweetened beverage consumption.”

The committee’s third goal is to “make chronic disease prevention and health improvement a local priority throughout the state.” The committee recommended that regional or local-level health departments gather with “key stakeholders” to develop their own health improvement plans that would be specific to their community.

It also recommended the creation of “health collaboratives” that would assist in developing and implementing policies at the local level.

Wickham said this kind of work is already going on throughout the state, but that she hoped to see the process to move forward “in a more formal and organized fashion.”

The final recommendation was that communities that already have health improvement plans and “effective strategies to improve health equity” be given priority in the distribution of resources.

Committee member Bruce Goldberg said he felt it was time for the committee to start thinking about action and moving forward with a strategy.

“I really hope that the next step will be towards actionable items with measurable outcomes,” said committee member Joe Robertson.

During a period of public comment, a legislative aide to Rep. Tina Kotek, D-Portland, read Kotek’s statement saying that while the goals by themselves were admirable, the recommendations seemed unlikely to advance them in a substantial way. She called the goals “too high-level and aspirational.”

The recommendation for a government council would “only add more meetings,” she said; and some of the recommendations “seemed tone-deaf to the fiscal health of the state.”

The final three goals listed by the committee were reducing obesity, tobacco use and exposure and supporting those managing a chronic illness.

“These are the kinds of specific goals that I would preference to the other three,” Kotek’s statement read.

Kotek’s statement recommended that the committee instead find ways to maximize existing resources and eliminate underperforming efforts, while focusing on more actionable goals.

“We don’t really need more visioning or planning,” she said. “It’s time to take action.”

The next OHPB meeting will take place August 10 at 8:30 a.m.