Survey to map population's health needs and lifestyle

About 5,500 people will be interviewed on their health and lifestyle over the coming months to collect data that will help piece together a picture of the population's health needs.

The survey will focus on a number of areas, including the interviewee's perceived health, general attitudes toward health, medicine consumption, chronic conditions and symptoms, physical activity, food consumption, sexual health and quality of life.

The results of the survey, which is partly funded by Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, will provide policy makers with the necessary information to take health-related decisions.

They will also provide important statistics, identify any health inequalities and allow for comparative studies with other countries.

The survey aims to provide a holistic insight into the nationwide burden of chronic physical and mental conditions and their resulting morbidity.

Health information is one of the tools used for health promotion and disease prevention and health surveys have the added value of collecting different types of information from the same person.

Speaking in St Andrew's - next to a billboard urging people to participate in the survey - Parliamentary Secretary for Health Joe Cassar explained that the information will be collected through interviews from a random sample.

Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, director general for strategy and sustainability within the Social Policy Ministry, pointed out that preventive measures should ideally be based on locally collected data.

The data will also allow policy makers to foresee future healthcare needs.

The authorities are encouraging those chosen to take part in the survey to collaborate since the information is extremely important for policy makers. The response rate for the last such survey carried out in 2002 was 80 per cent, department of information and research director Neville Calleja said, adding that it was hoped it would be higher this time round. Participants will receive some free gifts from a number of sponsors.

The survey is divided into two parts - a face-to-face interview and a written questionnaire for the more delicate details. Dr Azzopardi Muscat assured confidentiality, even for the face-to-face interviews.

Facts and figures

Here are some of the results of the first National Health Interview Survey, held in 2002.

• Just over half the interviewees said their general health was good. Just over 17 per cent said it was very good while 2.84 per cent considered it bad.

• 73.83 per cent considered their state of health more or less the same as it was a year before. Just over 13 per cent said it was somewhat worse and just under 10 per cent that it was somewhat better.

• More than 40 per cent had suffered a headache in the past 30 days, 40.82 per cent suffered from backache, 30.79 per cent from neck or shoulder pains and almost 17 per cent from insomnia.

• 83.3 per cent did not take any time off from work or school in the past month or were unable to go about their normal daily activities.

• More than 17 per cent suffered from high blood pressure, just under 19 per cent had allergies at some point and 7.26 per cent had suffered from asthma.

• Just over a fifth of interviewees - 21.3 per cent - said they had private health insurance.

• 77.2 per cent had not done any vigorous physical exercise in the previous seven days. Almost 30 per cent had not even gone for a 10-minute walk in the previous week.

• Just under a fourth of interviewees said they smoked cigarettes while 39.74 per cent had had an alcoholic drink during the previous week.