ATLANTA (AP) - About three years ago, the nation's top public health agency picked its battles. Now, it's issuing its own report card on reaching those goals: Pretty good but needs improvement.
The seven "winnable battles" singled out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set goals for 2015, such as cutting adult smoking to 17 percent and pushing childhood obesity down to about 15 percent.
The agency released its first progress report Thursday, and CDC officials said they're mostly pleased.
"There's clearly A's here and there's clearly things that aren't A's," said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, when asked to assign grades. "Overall, I'm quite encouraged."
The Atlanta-based CDC, with a budget of more than $10 billion, deals with issues ranging from abortion to zygomycosis infections. In 2010, it started to focus attention and money on six targets: smoking, AIDS, obesity and nutrition, teen pregnancy, auto injuries and infections that spread at hospitals. It later added food safety.
"If you try to tackle everything you achieve nothing," said Dr. Sandro Galea, a Columbia University expert in population health, explaining the rationale.
"If you try to tackle everything you achieve nothing," said Dr. Sandro Galea, a Columbia University expert in population health, explaining the rationale.
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