Measuring Health Behavior Paper

This week’s assignment asked the class to discuss the benefits of measuring health behaviors. Without the current health behavior measurement, they are several statics that warn against unhealthy behavior that wouldn’t have the data needed to provide critical data, needed to educate the population on harmful consequences. Let take smoking for instance, without the surveillance of smoker, organization like the CDC wouldn’t have the ability provide statics that show the health burden caused by smoking. In this week’s assignment we will; discuss reasons for measuring health behaviors, identify methods used to accesses/measure unhealthy behaviors and state whether or not measurement of health behaviors can be useful for program planning and …show more content…
YRBSS is a school based survey that is conducted on the state and local level. The survey measures 6 behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence. This survey measures the following behaviors in teenagers: tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors; and diet and physical inactivity (Mokdad and Remington, 2010). NSDUH is a survey that is conducted on the national and state level used to measure the use of use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit and nonmedical prescription drugs (Mokdad and Remington, …show more content…
In order to start a program, it’s important that you gather information. For instance, in our SLP assignment we’ve conducted research on our topic of choice and used that information to construct our goals and objectives. Establishing an effective program, starts with knowing who’s the intended audience. Survey’s, regardless of how the information is collected, either by phone or personal interview, gives you a stating point and can help with figuring out the behavior habits of the audience (Mokdad and Remington, 2010). Conducting survey’s will also give you an idea of the resources needed to better service your intended audience. In order to change behaviors, you must first be able to to show how the unhealthy behaviors can effect the health and well being of your audience. To do this a program mananger must have the ablity to provide facts, supported by medical data, the use of survey’s can provide much needed evidence. In the instance of the NSDUH, a program manager can use this tool to ensure that accurate data is provided, trends are tracked, at risk groups are identified and consequence of actions can be provided (NSDUH, 2017). I believe that it is important to ensure that information provided when establishing a program be benifical to the attended