WASHINGTON -- The following information was released by the Association of Public Television Stations:
Good afternoon. Welcome to the Association of Public Television Stations' Health Education Showcase. I'm Larry Sidman, the President and CEO of APTS. I thank you for taking time out from your busy schedules to join us.
At the outset, APTS thanks Senator Harkin for making it possible for us to use this room for our event. We also thank our member stations, Sesame Workshop, V-me and MHz Networks for expending the time and resources necessary to be here during an exceedingly difficult financial period in the history of our public broadcasting system.
Today we are proud to bring together public television stations from across the countryufrom Los Angeles and Las Vegas to Iowa and Illinois to New York and Bostonuto showcase the role they are playing in leading over-the-air, online and on the ground health education and disease prevention campaigns. You will see video and on-line content addressing obesity, diabetes, cancer, asthma, and elderly care. Many stations are forming partnerships with doctors, nurses, hospitals, universities and state and local governments to foster better health and defend against disease.
We in public television hope that you will take away three principal messages from our health education showcase.
First, we must, as a nation, pay greater attention to preventive health care. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, preventable causes of deathusuch as smoking, poor diet and physical inactivityuare responsible for nearly 900,000 deaths annually in the United States. Eating well, exercising and faithful checkups and screenings are commitments we can and should make to ourselves, our families and our country. A healthy America is a stronger, more vibrant America.
Second, disease prevention and wellness education cut health care costs. New studies demonstrate major cost savings from preventive care. For example, the Council of Economic Advisors concluded that a widespread emphasis on disease prevention measures will help reduce health care cost growth by as much as 1.5 percentage points per year. Although CBO may not score the cost savings associated with disease prevention and early treatment, every American knows intuitively that these savings are real.
Third, public broadcasting plays an essential role in promoting wellness and preventing disease. Through our video programming, exciting on-line, interactive content and on-the-ground partnerships with health care facilities in communities all across our great land, local public television stations, with their ubiquitous reach and unmatched trust, can and should be viewed as health care educators and enablers. Our role is particularly important in serving the most vulnerable members of our societyucommunities of color, Spanish speaking communities and the pooruwho suffer the ill effects of preventable diseases in disproportionate numbers.
I'd like to thank particularly Chairman Waxman and Chairman Harkin for their hard work and insightful thinking regarding their provisions in the House and Senate HELP Committee health bills, which make available grant funds for disease prevention and wellness education. APTS and our member stations look forward to continuing to work with Congress to ensure that public television stations will help make their grant programs a resounding success if they become law.
Thank you, again, for joining us today.
