Health hazard appraisal in patient counseling.
A program of annual health examinations was expanded to include counseling based on a computerized appraisal of individual patients' specific health hazard factors. Data obtained from a specially designed questionnaire, laboratory tests and a physical examination yielded a printout showing a number of weighted risk factors and their relation to ten leading causes of death as determined for that patient. From all of this information, a risk ("apparent") age was developed for the patient. The results were reviewed with each patient, and methods of correcting health hazards were stressed. A total of 488 persons were appraised, and 107 were randomly reappraised in less than a year, with the finding that the net risk age was reduced by 1.4 years. Such a reduction in risk age is significant; it indicates that appraisal-based counseling is an effective method of altering priorities of health practices.
D000059:Accidents; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity; D009026:Mortality; D011315:Preventive Medicine; D011379:Prognosis; D014481:United States