What is a Health Risk Assessment?
A Health Risk Assessment or HRA is a questionnaire that seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious disease and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.
A health risk assessment can be administered in numerous ways – face to face, via a paper questionnaire, etc, but is generally administered via a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.
An Health Risk Assessment is often used along with a biometric screening. By combining the health risk assessment with biometric testing you get a more accurate picture of a person’s current – and future – health.
A health risk assessment instrument is derived from an understanding of the in a illness. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments may be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Person with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious health problems over time.
Drawing attention to their health risks may help customers reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary illness and subsequent premature death.
The questionnaire covers way of life habits (such as use of tobacco, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (such as cholesterol, blood pressure levels, height, and weight).
For accuracy, it is critical to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol. The Health Risk Assessment also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Kinds of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.
The impact of a Health Risk Assessment is much greater when it is given in-person, with immediate feedback to the client. This also provides an opportunity to invite the client’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.
A health age can be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors. The health age might indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.
Health Risk Assessment programs are one the most prolific types of wellness activities utilized by companies. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.
One of the large advantages of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a corporation and may be utilized as an investigation tool.
