Health survey to be conducted this month

(Chelsea Update would like to thank Matt Pegouskie for the information in this story.)

Local wellness coalitions and Chelsea-Area Wellness Foundation (CWF) are asking residents in Chelsea, Dexter, Manchester, Grass Lake and Stockbridge to help with an important event in our mutual effort to improve health and wellness in the 5 Healthy Towns.

CWF is working with partners from Washtenaw County Public Health (the HIP team), St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea (SJMC) and the University of Missouri to conduct a survey to collect health statistics of our population.

Every five years, counties around the country conduct a broad, scientific-based telephone survey of their residents. Since 1995 the Washtenaw County’s HIP team has participated and in 2010 CWF and SJMC provided extra funding to oversample our five healthy towns.  That means enough randomly selected community residents were surveyed to provide statistically significant measures about the health status of our towns.

The survey is conducted by the University of Missouri. No data is ever tied back to the phone number of the person responding to the survey and no identifying information is collected.

The data collected plays a crucial role in development of 5 Healthy Town (5H) Comprehensive Wellness Plans.  Using the data the wellness coalitions can identify the health needs in their community.  Once needs are identified the coalitions are better able to determine how to use CWF and other organizations’ funds to improve local population health.  The funded programs help our community residence eat better, move more, connect with others in healthy ways, and avoid unhealthy substances. To date, CWF has funded over $1.6 million worth of interventions throughout the 5 Healthy Towns.

The data collected through the survey over many decades will help us determine our effectiveness and refine our approach to creating and sustaining health & wellness in the 5 healthy towns.

The survey consists of telephone calls to randomly selected residents asking a variety of health and wellness questions. An effort is made to collect data across age, gender, income and other demographic groups in a way that matches the local population. The 2015 survey will offer several improvements over 2010’s survey.

1. One question asks for the respondent’s zip code to allow separation of data and better identification of local health trends.

2. Random sampling includes landline and cell phones, recognizing the trend away from landlines, and ensuring better demographic coverage.

3. If a resident does not answer, a message will be left with a return phone number, asking that person to return the call and participate in the survey. If the person prefers to be called at a different time they will have an opportunity to make those arrangements.

In planning for the survey, the team considered negative attitudes about robo-calling and other unsolicited phone calls. In an attempt to clearly identify survey calls from these robo-calls the team arranged for all calls from surveyors to display a common caller ID phone number – the main phone number of Washtenaw County Public Health: 734-544-6700

The survey will begin in February and continue until a statistically significant number of surveys have been conducted. It will be conducted in Washtenaw County, Grass Lake Township and Stockbridge Township.

“We hope anyone who is called will participate in the survey.” said Amy Heydlauff, CEO, Chelsea-Area Wellness Foundation. “The survey will take only a few minutes to answer the questions. Ten years ago I was one of the randomly called residents in Washtenaw County. It was interesting to think about my own health status and it felt good to contribute.”