Do Health Indicators Indicate Health?

Abstract

Efforts are currently underway to develop measures of health status that are more sensitive to actual health status. One type of measure that has a potential as an indicator is based on functional ability or ability to perform the routine activities of daily living, such as walking, eating, dressing, and bathing. The National Health Interview Survey has recently tested a modified version of limitation of activity questions to include items on activities of daily living and self-care. An international effort to develop a set of functional activity questions is being conducted as a part of the Social Indicator Program of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The combining of data on functional ability and life expectancy to create measures of quality adjusted of life years is an attempt to use both mortality and morbidity data as an indicator of health status. There is a movement toward the development of health measures that classify people by health status rather than to count events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]