My goal for this editorial is to persuade you to contact the two U.S. Senators who represent your state and the U.S. Representative who represents your congressional district to ask them to support our Health Promotion resolutions in the Senate and the House of Representatives. If you are ready to act, skip to the end of the editorial. If you would like an update on our advocacy efforts, read on.

I am still convinced that our collective work on this effort will transform the health promotion field within a few years. This transformation will prevent unnecessary deaths, enhance the quality of life for millions of people, and create wonderful career opportunities for health promotion professionals.

The terrorist attacks on September 11 forced us to rethink our advocacy efforts to Build Health Promotion into the National Agenda. Given the focus of the White House and the Congress on responding to the attacks, we wondered if our advocacy efforts would fall on deaf ears. We wondered if we should postpone our efforts for a year. Given the success many groups achieved in securing funding by showing how their issue provided a direct solution to the fallout caused by the terrorist attacks, we considered repositioning our issue in that way. We discussed these and other options within our committee and sought outside counsel. After considering all the options we could imagine, we decided to modify our effort only slightly.

We greatly reduced our efforts to contact Congress during the two months after the attacks because it was difficult to gain much attention. We also decided to reposition our issue slightly to better recognize the value of health promotion in helping to build a society which has sufficiently strong physical, emotional, social, and spiritual qualities required to withstand periods of crisis.

Most of all we decided to reaffirm our position that lifestyle-related problems are responsible for half of the premature deaths in the United States and at least one quarter of medical care costs, and to stress that our society cannot afford to lose lives which can be saved, or waste money on medical care costs which can be prevented.

Our current priorities are: (1) pass our Health Promotion resolutions in the Senate (S. Con. Res. 11) and the House of Representatives (H. Res. 115), hopefully by early in the first quarter of 2002, (2) find at least one Senator and one Representative to introduce and champion our Health Promotion Research Act by the first quarter of 2002, (3) work to pass that Act by the end of 2002, and (4) determine what issue to advance next.

As I have explained in the past, the Health Promotion Research Act is designed to secure federal funds to develop the basic and applied science of health promotion, to disseminate information about the benefits of health promotion to policy makers, and to disseminate the best techniques to practitioners. We feel this is an important first step in achieving our long term goal of integrating health promotion into all elements of society, because it will help to legitimize the field, enhance the quality and impact of our methods, and make all practitioners aware of these methods.

If you support our goals for this advocacy effort, please pull out your calendar right now and schedule time to call your two Senators and your Representative at their Washington, D.C., offices within the next seven days. When you call, ask to speak to the legislative aide responsible for health issues. Explain that you would like to discuss the importance of federal support for health promotion and ask that the Senator or Representative become a co-signer on our resolutions. Plan to call every 10 days or so until you receive confirmation of the co-signing.

As of November 27, 31 Senators and 51 Representatives have signed on as sponsors or cosponsors. We would like to recruit at least 50 Senators and 200 Representatives. If your Senators or Representative has already signed on, please call them to thank them for their support. A list of co-signers can be found through the links on our web site (www.HealthPromotionAdvocacy.org)

You can reach any member of Congress by calling the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. You can also go to our website for contact details, more advocacy tips, and backup documentation. Let us know what you do by sending an email to volunteers@HealthPromotionAdvocacy.org.

Contacting Congress is intimidating for most people, so I would like to reassure you: I think you will find that it is actually quite easy, usually a lot of fun, and most important, your efforts will make a big difference.

Michael P. O'Donnell, PhD, MBA, MPH
Editor in Chief, American Journal of Health Promotion