Measuring Health Status

Revision

1. Read ‘New Years Resolution’ Article and answer questions.

2. Case Studies – Melissa, Jeff, Isobella

A. For each case study outline: • the person’s physical health • the person’s mental health • the person’s social health

B. Make recommendations that could improve ??’s physical, mental and social health.

Measuring Health Status• In terms of gathering data on health status, physical ill health is

generally the easiest to measure and therefore forms the basis of a majority of the health data available.

• Data is also available on depression and other aspects of mental health, and some data exist that relate to social health such as participation in community activities, so this can be used.

• The various statistics give specific information and, when used together, can give accurate information about overall health status.

• It is useful to look at a range of statistics as quite often one set of statistics will provide only limited information about overall health status.

Health Indicators • There are a number of statistics or health

indicators that give information on the health status of groups and populations.

The health indicators examined are:• life expectancy• mortality• morbidity• burden of disease

Life Expectancy • Define Life Expectancy from Glossary..

‘An indication of how long a person can

expect live, it is the number of years of life

remaining to a person at a particular age if

death rates do not change.’ (AIHW, 2008)

Life Expectancy

• Life expectancy is especially useful for comparing different countries and population groups.

• Unlike mortality and morbidity figures, life expectancy does not provide information on the health issues facing a country or population group.

• Although an important health indicator, life expectancy doesn’t give any indication of the quality of life being experienced; it is based on quantity of life.

HALE

• A measurement that considers life expectancy data and quality of life is health adjusted life expectancy or HALE (often simply referred to as ‘healthy life expectancy’).

• This refers to the number of years lived without reduced functioning (including mobility and the operation of body systems) due to ill health and is therefore an indicator of quality of life.

Life Expectancy

Case Study

• Read ‘Short Lived’• Answer Questions 1 – 4 in your books.

H/W – 1. Which dimension? 2. Applying the dimensions of heath