Major Health Survey Underway in Chester County
Thursday. July 1, 2004

Take Time To Improve Health.  By taking a few minutes to answer questions about health and health care experiences, Chester county residents 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 Chester, as well as Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia 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:

• Adults in Chester County are the most likely of all adults in Southeastern Pennsylvania to have a regular source of care (91.9%);
• More than half of all adults in Chester County are overweight or obese (56.7%) and one out of three children are at-risk of obesity (32.9%);
• Chester County has the lowest rate of uninsured children in Southeastern Pennsylvania, with only 1.1% of their children currently without insurance;
• Nearly all adults in Chester County feel they belong and are a part of their neighborhood (94.1%) and believe that their neighbors can be trusted (97.4%), however, only 52.2% report that their neighbors have worked together to improve the neighborhood;
• One out of five households in Chester County contain a firearm (20.5%) and approximately ten percent of these firearms are kept loaded and unlocked (9.9%).

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.