What are Health Status and Health Related Quality of Life Measures?
Today we will be reviewing several consumer-oriented measures of health status and HRQOL that are relevant to the study of injury outcomes. These measures generally include both objective and subjective components of human functioning and well-being, measure health from the consumers point of view (as opposed to that of a health care provider) and tap into multiple domains of health that are relevant to the individual and society. The emphasis on these measures as opposed to clinical measures of morbidity and impairment reflects the growing recognition that the consumers perspective of his or her health and well-being is central to the development and evaluation of cost-effective programs and policy (Relman, 1988; Gold et al., 1996). Domains usually included in a general health status or HRQOL scale are: physical health and self-maintenance; cognitive function; mental health; social function; role function and general health perceptions. Health status measures typically combine assessm
