The Beaver Dam Health Outcomes study: Initial Catalog of Health-state Quality Factors

The Beaver Dam Health Outcomes Study (BDHOS) is an ongoing longitudinal cohort study of health status and health-related quality of life for a random sample of adults (age range at interview was 45 to 89 years; mean = 64.1, SD = 10.8) in a community population. In a face-to-face interview lasting approximately an hour, each participant responds to several batteries of questions. Included are a history of chronic medical conditions, current medi cations, and past surgeries; the SF-36 (a general health-status questionnaire); the Quality of Well-being index; self-rated health status on a five-point scale from "excellent" to "poor"; and evaluation of current health using the method of time tradeoffs. The authors present results from 1,356 interviews on these four principal measures, reporting mean scores by sex, by age, and for persons reporting being affected by various medical conditions. They believe data from the BDHOS will provide researchers and policy makers a reference col lection of vital statistics for health-related quality of life. Additionally, the data provide a way to compare results from studies that utilize different indices from among the four principal measures of the BDHOS. Key words: health status; quality of life (health-related); population study; cohort study. (Med Decis Making 1993;13:89-102)