News

How healthy and happy is your state? Your congressional district? (You can find out although you may already have a good idea.)

Health policymakers want and need to know if they are to shape policies to respond to citizens’ measurable needs in meaningful ways. One challenge policymakers always have faced is that by the time there is enough data to be reliable, the population already is changing in the way which was being tracked.

“The Gallup polling organization has conducted 355,334 interviews over 351 days — tracked the impact day by day of the nation’s economic downturn on Americans’ daily lives,” this story says.

USA TODAY/AHIP Website

“A massive, ongoing survey of Americans’ daily lives — from how they are treated on the job to whether they had access to fresh fruits and vegetables — is designed to create a sort of Dow Jones Industrial Average for policymakers dealing with health care.The Gallup-Healthways project includes polling of more than 1,000 people almost every night of the year, building an unprecedented database that scrutinizes physical and emotional health, social interactions, personal behavior and attitudes toward work and life.

“A summary of the first year’s findings, including a ranking of states and congressional districts, is being released today.

“It is called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index AHIP Congressional Report.

“We have to think bigger about health care — that’s the message from this data,” says Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an alliance of health insurers.”

Source: USA TODAY, March 10, 2009

Source: Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index AHIP Congressional Report