What is the Arizona Health Survey?

The Arizona Health Survey (AHS) is an extensive effort to collect data on individual indicators of health status, insurance coverage, access to care, health-related behaviors and various demographic and social/environmental factors related to health.  It is designed to inform and improve public policy and community health program planning decisions at the local, regional and state levels.

Why do another survey?  Don’t we already have enough data?  

In contrast to other organizations and public agencies that collect data on health and healthcare delivery, the AHS takes an asset-based approach that goes beyond traditional focus areas of access, cost and quality, to consider the impact of social and environmental factors, community resources, health-related behaviors, attitudes and outcomes.  For these reasons, AHS is an important step in developing a health surveillance system capable of providing standardized state and local health data that can be used to target intervention activities, plan resource allocation and inform complex policy issues.