orate use and calculates costs and savings related to employee health as well as individual risks. The questionnaire covers some 200 items to collect data on habits, stress, and medical history. The individual profile produced is 13 pages long and explains each client's deviation from the "average" for 39 risk indicators, risk of hospitalization, and mortality risks.
--GENERAL WELL-BEING QUESTIONNAIRE (St. Louis Medical Center): This instrument measures current levels of fitness rather than future disease, using 143 questions and statements as to health attitudes and life-style.
--HEALTH HAZARD APPRAISAL (Methodist Hospital): This instrument contains approximately 80 questions covering family history, medical history, life-style, stress, and women's health. Computer analysis provides a four-page report showing risks, appraisal age, and ways to reduce appraisal age.
--HEALTH RISK APPRAISAL QUESTIONNAIRE (St. Louis County Health Department): This instrument is based on the Methodist Hospital instrument, with 39 questions covering personal and family medical history, health habits, and woman's health.
--PULSE (International Health Awareness Center): This questionnaire includes 143 questions on personal and family medical history, life-style, and women's health. What is produced is a 20-page narrative report describing personal health status and comparing the individual's mortality risks with those of others in the same demographic group. The profile evaluates nutrition, exercise, weight, stress, dental status, and health knowledge.
The purpose of these health risk assessments is to ascertain data about the clients and to compare that data with a norm for a given population, age group, or other demographic group. Computer-based health risk assessments seek the same information and make the same sort of analyses, but they do so with a computer program rather than a written questionnaire. Among these are the fol...