Self-reported health status is a reliable indicator of a person’s perceived health and is a good global assessment of a person’s well-being. Self-reported health status may worsen if the health system and other domains are not working to improve quality of life.
Measures of general health status provide information on the health of a population. They allow for broad comparisons across different conditions and populations. Differences in general health status among segments of the general population indicate disparities in resources for good health.
Poor general health impacts all aspects of life, including work, school, education, social networks, and financial status. Good health is important for thriving communities, and everyone should be afforded the opportunity to achieve healthy lives. Understanding how health status varies within a population can help guide policies or interventions to improve the health of those experiencing disparities.
The adult general health status data displayed here are collected through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). BRFSS is the nation’s premier system of telephone surveys that collect state data about health risk behaviors, chronic health conditions, and use of clinical preventive services among adult U.S. residents.
BRFSS invites a randomly selected sample of Iowan adults to participate in the telephone survey. Recent surveys have included both adults who have landline telephones and cell phone users, and have had between 6,000 and 7,700 participants. All responses are weighted to the entire Iowan population so that weighted results are intended to capture the experience of the entire state.
People who took part in BRFSS were asked the questions:
“Would you say that your general health is….” And were given the options, “excellent”, “very good”, “good”, “fair”, and “poor”.
“Now thinking about your physical health, which includes physical illness and injury, for how many days during the past 30 days was your physical health not good?”.
“Now thinking about your physical health, which includes physical illness and injury, for how many days during the past 30 days was your physical health not good?”.
If an individual responded that their physical/mental health was not good on 14 or more days, they were considered to have poor physical or mental health.
The self-reporting health status questions were asked in the BRFSS Core section every year from 2017 the most recent year available.
