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Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(15):1761-1762.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Because a number of factors outside the medical system have considerable effects on health, experts are working to identify nonmedical strategies to improve the well-being of those living in the United States. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a national, independent, and nonpartisan group called the Commission to Build a Healthier America to investigate how factors such as education, environment, income, and housing influence personal choices that affect health (http://www.commissiononhealth.org/).

"For reasons that don't appear to have much to do with health care, there is a big gap between how healthy we are and how healthy we could be," said the comission’s co-chair, Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, director of the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, at the commission's launch in February. In 2 years, the commission hopes to recommend both short-term and long-term strategies to help . . . [Full Text of this Article]

COMMISSION'S MISSION