Abstract
Background: The Life’s simple 7 (LS7) health metrics were introduced by the American Heart Association (AHA) to assess cardiovascular health. Studies have linked higher numbers of ideal LS7 health metrics to lower incidence of both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular diseases. In the workplace, employees typically complete a health risk assessment (HRA) to assess their health status. In this study, we examined the association between an individual’s perception of overall health using an HRA and the LS7 health metrics.
Methods: Data for the LS7 health metrics and the perception of overall health were collected during the annual voluntary wellness fairs and HRAs for employees of a large nonprofit health care organization in South Florida. Each LS7 health metric (smoking, physical activity, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol and blood glucose) was classified as ideal, intermediate or poor according to AHA criteria. On the HRA questionnaire, participants rated their overall health as poor to fair, good to very good or excellent. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and kappa statistics (k) were computed to determine the agreement between the LS7 classification and perception of overall health status taken from the HRA.
Results: 9364 employees had complete wellness fair and HRA data in 2014. Mean age (SD) was 43 years (12), 75% were women. The table below shows the categories of overall health by LS7 and HRA classification. Approximately 43% of study participants differed in the assessment of their health status using the HRA when compared to the LS7 categories with nearly one-third of study participants overestimating and 11% underestimating their overall health. ICC was 0.13. K and weighted k were 0.06 and 0.01 respectively (P<0.0001).
Conclusion: In this study, we noted significant variation between the perception of overall health and the classification of health status based upon LS7 health metrics with only 57% of employees classifying their health status in agreement with their achievement of LS7 metrics. Further public health efforts should be directed towards increasing the awareness and use of the LS7 in the workplace as a measure of overall health.
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