Wellness Programs : Health Risk Appraisal.

A Health Risk Appraisal (HRA)  is sometimes used combined with a biometric screening.  An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

An HRA seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious illness and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.

An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the in a disease. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments could be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Person with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious medical problems over time.

Drawing attention to their health risks can help patrons reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary illness and subsequent premature death.

The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (like smoking, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (like 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 (HRA) also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Types of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.

The impact of a health risk appraisal is much greater when it is given in-person, with immediate feedback to the patron. This also provides an opportunity to invite the patron’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.

A health age could be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age may indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) programs are one the most prolific types of wellness activities utilized by organizations. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

Among the large advantages of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a company and could be utilized as an examination tool.

Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.