Primary care best equipped to improve patient behaviors

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Medical Economics' blog section which features contributions from members of the medical community. These blogs are an opportunity for bloggers to engage with readers about a topic that is top of mind, whether it is practice management, experiences with patients, the industry, medicine in general, or healthcare reform. The series continues with this blog by Glen Stream, MD, FAAFP, MBI, a family physician practicing in La Quinta, California, who is also past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He serves as the president and board chair of Family Medicine for America’s Health. The views expressed in these blogs are those of their respective contributors and do not represent the views of Medical Economics or UBM Medica.

 

Glen R. Stream, MDA troubling new study about the “unhealthy behaviors” of millions of Americans documented a reality that has increasingly become all too familiar to me and the 209,000 other primary care physicians in the United States-more than 25 million adults have at least three behaviors that inevitably lead to poor health.

 

More from Dr. Stream: Examining the resurgence of primary care

 

Because we stand at the vanguard of medical care, family doctors can’t help but see patients every day who smoke, drink too much, don’t get enough sleep, don’t exercise or are obese.

Sometimes all of the above.

The health consequences are not insignificant. The study, conducted by the United Health Foundation and released in partnership with Family Medicine for America’s Health, found that adults who report having three or more of five unhealthy behaviors are at more than six times as  great a risk of fair or poor health than those reporting none.

It gets worse for those reporting all five: an 8.5 times greater risk for heart disease and other chronic conditions linked to morbidity and mortality. Even adults who say they have only one unhealthy behavior are twice as likely to be at risk than those with none.

 

Blog: Change doesn't have to be a bad thing for physicians

 

While it may be common sense that more unhealthy behaviors add up to greater odds of poor health, this study is the first to quantify the impact. For me, it drives home just how important behavior is to health and should help those of us in  medical practice communicate more effectively with our patients about the risks to their health.

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