Health indicators as a measure of individual health status: public perspectives

ObjectiveWe examined the perspectives of the general public on 29 health indicators to provide evidence for further prioritizing the indicators, which were obtained from the literature review. Health status is different from disease status, which can refer to different stages of cancer.DesignThis study uses a cross-sectional design.SettingAn online survey was administered through Ohio University, ResearchMatch, and Clemson University.ParticipantsParticipants included the general public who are 18 years or older. A total of 1153 valid responses were included in the analysis.Primary outcomes measuresParticipants rated the importance of the 29 health indicators. The data were aggregated, cleaned, and analyzed in three ways: (1) to determine the agreement among the three samples on the importance of each indicator (IV = the three samples, DV = individual survey responses); (2) to examine the mean differences between the retained indicators with agreement across the three samples (IV = the identified indicators, DV = individual survey responses); and (3) to rank the groups of indicators after grouping the indicators with no mean differences (IV = the groups of indicators, DV = individual survey responses).ResultsThe descriptive statistics indicate that the top-five rated indicators are drug or substance abuse, smoking or tobacco use, alcohol abuse, major depression, diet and nutrition. The importance of 13 of the 29 health indicators was agreed upon among the three samples. The 13 indicators were categorized into seven groups. Groups 1-3 were rated as significantly higher than Groups 4-7.ConclusionsThis study provides a baseline for prioritizing further the 29 health indicators, which can be used by electronic health records or personal health record system developers. Currently, self-rated health status is used predominantly. Our study provides a foundation to track and measure preventive services more accurately and to develop an individual health status index.Strengths and limitations of this studyThe work establishes the foundation to measure individual health status more comprehensively and objectivelyThe work reflects perspectives from three communities with a relatively large sample sizeThe work provides the foundation to prioritize the 29 health indicators furtherWith real-world longitudinal data, the public perspective data on individual health status measurement would be verified and validated further