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Self-reported Fair or Poor Health by Year, New Mexico and U.S., 2004 to 2020

Indicator Report Data View Options

Why Is This Important?

Self-rated health (SRH) has been collected for many years on National Center for Health Statistics surveys and since 1993 on the state-based BRFSS. SRH is an independent predictor of important health outcomes including mortality, morbidity, and functional status. It is considered to be a reliable indicator of a person's perceived health and is a good global assessment of a person's well being.

  • Break*Break in the trend line for BRFSS weighting method difference.

Definition

Percentage of adults aged 18 years and older who reported fair or poor general health. Question wording: "Would you say that in general your health is excellent, very good, good, fair or poor?"

Data Sources

  • Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with New Mexico Department of Health, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau.
    (https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/ibeb/brfss/)
  • U.S. data source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Prevalence and Trends Data.
    (https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/brfssprevalence)

How the Measure is Calculated

Numerator:Number of survey respondents who reported fair or poor general health.
Denominator:Total number of survey respondents except those with missing, "Don't know/Not sure," and "Refused" responses.

Data Issues

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is an ongoing survey of adults about health-related behaviors, health conditions, and preventive services. Data are collected in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories. The survey is conducted using scientific telephone survey methods for landline and cellular phones (with cellular since 2011). The landline phone portion of the survey excludes adults living in group quarters such as college dormitories, nursing homes, military barracks, and prisons. The cellular phone portion of the survey includes adult students living in college dormitories but excludes other group quarters. Beginning with 2011, the BRFSS updated its surveillance methods by adding in calls to cell phones and changing its weighting methods. These changes improve BRFSS' ability to take into account the increasing proportion of U.S. adults using only cellular telephones. Because of these changes, the data from years prior to 2011 are not directly comparable to data from 2011 and later. Please see the [[a href="/nmibis-view/docs/Query/BRFSS/BRFSS_fact_sheet_Aug2012.pdf BRFSS Method Change Factsheet]]. Responses have been weighted to reflect the New Mexico adult population by age, sex, ethnicity, geographic region, marital status, education level, home ownership and type of phone. The "missing" and "don't know" responses are not included when calculating a percentage.

Health Topic Pages Related to: General Health Status

Community Health Resources and Links





Medical literature can be queried at the PubMed website.

Indicator Data Last Updated On 03/16/2021, Published on 04/08/2022
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Epidemiology and Response Division, New Mexico Department of Health, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau, Santa Fe, NM, 87502. Telephone: (505) 476-3595.