Representative Measures of Veteran Health Factors

• Activity Number: 182
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, July 30, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Brady Stephens*+ and Robert Bossarte and Rebecca Piegari
• Companies: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
• Keywords: Veteran ; BRFSS ; Health Factors

Abstract

A wealth of data on the health of Veterans is available for those receiving care from the Veteran Health Administration (VHA) - there is less data available for the Veteran population as a whole. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a valuable state-administered health survey that collects some Veteran information, including self-reported Veteran status. BRFSS data is weighted to be representative of the general state populations, but not to the Veteran state subpopulations. Previous research has shown that certain BRFSS data is relatively representative of the total general population for many health topics, but other research has shown this is not the case for the total Veteran population for the same health topics.

In an effort to address this disjoint, Veteran weight factors by state and age were applied to BRFSS data. The following report evaluates the representativeness of the Veteran population at the state and national level for 2003-2011 BRFSS data after adjustment. Comparisons between the results and available VHA data were highlighted in areas where there were differences in health factors between the VHA and the total Veteran populations.