Washington, DC – The District of Columbia Department of Health (DOH) announced today that the DOH Center for Policy Planning and Evaluation has received $270,311 to enhance its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BFRSS) program. BRFSS is the largest state-based telephone health survey administered by DOH. The project is already funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). DOH will utilize these additional grant funds to supplement the existing BRFSS survey with questions related to the goals of the District’s new “Live Well DC” project, an initiative supported by more stimulus funds under a CDC Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiative grant.
“Every day, consciously and sub-consciously, we make choices that affect our health,” said Dr. Pierre Vigilance Director, DOH. “Surveys like BRFSS help us link some of these choices to the health outcomes. This allows the Department of Health to make better decisions about how to target our health/wellness education efforts, and health policy initiatives. Ultimately, we want to be able to help make healthy choices the default choice in our health disparate communities.” he said.
The CPPW initiative is a part of the $650 million provided to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for chronic disease and prevention efforts under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to improve the health outcomes of millions of Americans.
The BRFSS system collects information on health risk behaviors, preventive health practices and health care access primarily related to chronic disease and injury.
The DOH BRFSS and “Live Well DC” program have joined forces under the CPPW to collect data targeting individual behaviors that result in poor health outcomes interrelated to social determinants of health, including physical environment that are directly related to the individual’s capacity to make healthy and informed choices. The District's CPPW program will use evidence-based community approaches to chronic disease prevention to focus on the following:
- Increasing levels of physical activity
- Improving nutrition
- Decreasing overweight/obesity prevalence
- Decreasing tobacco use
- Decreasing exposure to second-hand smoke
To facilitate these efforts the BRFSS has developed a survey that will be conducted to 1500 District residents 18 years of age and older in all 8 wards of the District of Columbia over the period of 33 months that encompass components of the focus areas.
DOH encourages all residents who receive one of the survey calls to participate.