(Warren, AR)---Wouldn’t you want to know if your child were playing with matches near a can of gasoline? Well, Arkansans are—to varying degrees—playing with fire every day. The Arkansas Health Department (ADH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta are working with local officials in your area to identify risk factors like cigarette smoking, health insurance availability and lack of physical activity. In fact, a tried and true survey will be conducted by telephone in Bradley County.
Eight hundred Bradley Countians will participate in the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey System (BRFSS), according to Diane Sipes, leader for the the Bradley County Hometown Health Coalition. “We’re really excited about this survey,” says Diane. “We don’t want people hanging up in [the surveyors’] ears.”
“It’s important to know the health of the people in your county,” says Diane. “Survey results will help us get grant money and fine tune the health services we provide.”
Each year in Arkansas, about 3,000 scientifically selected adults answer a battery of questions on the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey. While that’s a sufficient sample to draw conclusions about the health
and behaviors of Arkansans in general, it’s too small a sample to draw meaningful conclusions