Preface
The 2008 Indiana Health Behavior Risk Factors Report provides a summary of the information collected from Indiana’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) throughout 2008. The survey collects data from Indiana residents on various modifiable health risks, preventive health measures, and demographic variables. The objective of this report is to encourage change in risk-related health behaviors, discover target populations for programs and resources, and present the condition of Indiana’s health in a way that can be compared to the health risk behaviors of the rest of the United States.
This report is intended for health professionals, students, legislators, and others interested in the health status of the Indiana community.
The Indiana State Department of Health gratefully
acknowledges the efforts of the residents of the State of Indiana who took the
time to respond to the questions asked in the telephone interviews conducted for
this survey. A special acknowledgment is also extended to the
staff of Clearwater Research, Inc., who committed themselves to collecting these
BRFSS data in an accurate and professional manner.
Notes:
In tables where a particular age range of respondents is reported, e.g., C12.21, the report’s numbers and percentages will not necessarily match the Codebook’s values. The Codebook’s values are based on imputed age of the respondents, while we base our values on their reported age.
In all the tables, "Unk/Ref" indicates that the
respondent declined to answer the question or was uncertain of the correct
response.
The racial/ethnicity groupings are those provided by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Black is understood to mean
Black or African American. Other demographic groupings are either
conventional or provide useful classifications for Indiana respondents.
For reporting of the two child asthma variables, the children's racial classifications were constructed from a combination of the bridged race and the racial variables, grouping the data into three groups: white, black, and other/multiracial.
Ethnicity, sex, and age of the children were available from data in the file.