Staying Healthy Assessment Questionnaires and Counseling and Resource Guide 

"Staying Healthy" Assessment Questionnaires

Behavioral risk factors may contribute to 50% of preventable mortality in the U.S.  Much of this mortality could be avoided through increased patient counseling and referral to treatment programs by providers.  Unfortunately, for most risk factors only about 20% of patients receive appropriate counseling and referral from providers.

The Office of Clinical Preventive Medicine (OCPM) worked with the Medi-Cal Managed Care Division (MMCD) and Medi-Cal managed care health plans to develop a set of age-specific behavioral risk assessment questionnaires called the "Staying Healthy" Assessment.  The "Staying Healthy" Assessment is a set of five age-specific questionnaires that address 11 different patient behavioral risk factors, such as alcohol use, smoking, and nutrition. Designed for completion in the clinic or doctor’s office waiting room, the "Staying Healthy" Assessment questionnaires serve as prompts for both providers and patients to talk about important behavior risk factors that lead to preventable disease and for which patients may need additional health education and counseling.

The idea for the "Staying Healthy" Assessment questionnaires originated with a number of Medi-Cal health plans and MMCD staff who desired to have a standardized set of questionnaires for use by all patients regardless of the particular health plan in which they may be a member.  Since patients may change health plans frequently and providers may treat patients from multiple plans, a set of standardized questionnaires was needed to help avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.

Beginning on March 1, 2000 use of these questionnaires was required for all Medi-Cal managed care providers as part of the initial health assessment of new English and Spanish-speaking patients.  The use of these questionnaires is now also mandated for Chinese, Hmong, Lao, Russian, and Vietnamese patients. 

Clink link at the bottom of the page to navigate to the questionnaires.   

"Staying Healthy" Assessment Counseling and Resource Guide

Pilot testing of the "Staying Healthy" Assessment and other studies have revealed that many providers feel that they lack adequate knowledge and resources to effectively counsel and refer patients for many behavioral risk factors.  Many feel at a loss as to how to efficiently and effectively deal with patients on these difficult, but important issues.

OCPM worked for several more months beginning in 1999 with a committee composed of Medi-Cal health plan staff (health educators, medical directors), California Department of Health Services (CDHS) public health program staff, and MMCD staff to create materials to support providers in their use of the "Staying Healthy" Assessment - instruction sheets, video, and a handbook for providers.  The latter formed the basic foundation for the "Staying Healthy" Assessment Counseling and Resource Guide.

OCPM subsequently worked with 15 CDHS public health programs over a 2-year period to create the "Staying Healthy" Assessment Counseling and Resource Guide.  This guide is designed to assist health care providers in using the "Staying Healthy" Assessment in their practices---providing information on suggested follow-up questions, counseling methods recommended by major national and state authorities, background information, and health education resources (relevant health education publications produced by CDHS, other state agencies, or federal sources) for each topic on the "Staying Healthy" Assessment.

For each of the 11 major behavioral risk factors addressed by the "Staying Healthy" Assessment three types of information are provided in this Guide:

• Counseling recommendations quoted from federal or state sources;
• Background information as to why the behavioral risk factor is important for the health of Californians--particularly the Medi-Cal population; and
• Resources (relevant health education publications produced by state agencies or federal sources).  In two risk areas (tobacco and STD/HIV) California Department of Public Health programs have created special order forms;
• The electronic PDF format makes this document easy to navigate. Clicking on headings in the table of contents immediately takes the user to the relevant information in the document. Clicking on specific questions in the sample questionnaires takes the user immediately to information in the Guide to help providers assist patients with the issue(s) addressed in the specific question. In many instances, Internet addresses have been provided that can be clicked to download a health education pamphlet or to open an authoritative web site.

Clink links below to navigate to the "Staying Healthy" Assessment Counseling and Resource Guide and questionnaires.