5185.0: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 - 2:30 PM

Abstract #11645

Origins and use of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Healthy Days" measures

David G. Moriarty, BSEE and Matthew M. Zack, MD, MPH. Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop K-45, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Atlanta, GA 30341, 770-488-5455, dgm1@cdc.gov

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its public health partners have developed and validated a brief set of "Healthy Days" health-related quality of life (HRQOL) questions and population baseline data to help guide efforts to reach the Healthy People 2010 goal of “Increasing the Quality and Years of Healthy Life.” Questions about self-rated general health, recent physically unhealthy days, recent mentally unhealthy days, and recent activity limitation days have been asked by all 50 States in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) since 1993, providing public-domain HRQOL data for more than 800,000 adults. Two of these measures are also used to estimate “healthy days,” a simple--yet valid--summary index. Beginning in 2000, these 4 questions were also added to the examination component of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and asked of all sample persons aged 12 and older. An expanded set of questions is also now used by about half of the States to track current activity limitations (including their main cause, duration, and severity) and recent days of pain, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, and vitality. These measures have been found to be useful for understanding the determinants of health behaviors and describing the burden of health conditions. Principal policy-relevant uses of the measures and data will be discussed--including findings of notable HRQOL differences among socio-demographic and disease groups, a strong seasonal pattern in unhealthy days (physical and mental), and national and State-level trends in HRQOL.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to: 1. Describe how the Healthy Days index is computed. 2. Identify the primary source of public domain Healthy Days data. 3. Discuss the health policy significance of HRQOL surveillance

Keywords: Quality of Life, Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

The 128th Annual Meeting of APHA