Major Health Survey Underway in Philadelphia
Thursday. July 1, 2004

Take Time To Improve Health.  By taking a few minutes to answer questions about health and health care experiences, Philadelphians can play an important role in improving local health care services.

PHILADELPHIA, PA, June 28, 2004 — Over the next few months, Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC) will be conducting the 2004 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey, a major telephone survey to examine the health and health care experiences of Southeastern Pennsylvania residents.  Approximately 10,000 households throughout the region will be randomly contacted by telephone and asked questions about health screenings, use of health services, health insurance, and personal health behaviors, among other topics. 

All of the information collected is completely confidential.  Survey information will be used to plan and improve health services for residents of Philadelphia, as well as Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Hospitals, government agencies, universities, managed care organizations and others will use information from the survey to assess community health needs, address community health concerns, and plan and evaluate programs. 

Previous Household Health Surveys found that:

• More than six out of ten adults in Philadelphia are overweight or obese (62.3%) and nearly half of the children in Philadelphia are at-risk of obesity (45.1%);
• In Philadelphia, 18.0% of adults report that they never exercise.
• Adults in Philadelphia are the most likely of all adults in Southeastern Pennsylvania to report that their neighbors have worked together to improve their neighborhood through neighborhood watches, creating playgrounds or community gardens, etc (70.2%);
• The percentage of smokers varies across the five counties, with a low of 16.1% in Montgomery County, to a high of 24.9% in Philadelphia;
• Philadelphia has the highest rate of asthma among children (13.7%) in all of Southeastern Pennsylvania.  This projects to 51,860 children in Philadelphia who currently suffer from asthma;
• There are an estimated 115,100 adults and 20,700 children in Philadelphia who are currently uninsured;
• In Philadelphia, 15.7% of adults ages 60 and older report signs of major depression, however only 9.5% have ever been diagnosed with a mental health condition.

The 2004 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey is conducted by PHMC’s Community Health Data Base project. The project, which was established in 1983, is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, The William Penn Foundation, The United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and a variety of participating agencies from the health, government, nonprofit, and academic sectors. In the past decade, the Household Health Survey has been conducted every other year. Key findings from previous years are available at www.phmc.org/chdb.

PHMC is a non-profit, public health organization that is committed to improving the health of the community through outreach, education, research, planning, technical assistance, and direct services. PHMC is a Member Agency of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.