BUPA Hong Kong Health Index Survey Conducted by Public Opinion Programme, The University of Hong Kong Respondents perceived both their own physical health and mental health relatively goodBack
Date of Release: July 20, 2006 | |
Hong Kong, 20 July 2006 - Globally and locally, there have been significant increases in the concern for physical and mental health. How much do people know about their own health? Have they misunderstood the correct perception of "health"? | |
BUPA (Asia) Limited appointed the Public Opinion Programme of The University of Hong Kong to conduct the first "BUPA Hong Kong Health Index" survey, which interviewed 1,016 Hong Kong residents aged 18 and above via telephone during March and April this year. | |
The survey mainly covers 2 parts: (I) the physical health and living habits, including the health status of the respondents for the past week, bodily soreness, exercises and BMI (weight) and so forth, the respondents have to answer questions on how they perceived their physical health, and in comparison to the same age group and gender. (II) The second part consists of a "Quality of Life" questionnaire; the respondents have to answer questions on how they perceived their mental health, and to score on a self- assessment of their quality of life. | |
Majority of the respondents perceived their health status relatively good - overall average score for physical health is 6.6 whilst mental health is 7.0. (Full mark: 10) | |
Dr Daimen Marmion, Managing Director of BUPA (Asia) Limited, said: "BUPA Hong Kong Health Index is custom-made to raise the concern for both physical and mental health. We hope to encourage the people of Hong Kong to nurture a healthy lifestyle through the induction of this health index and, ultimately, it will become a major scale of health measurement in the community." | |
One of the findings is more female respondents suffered bodily soreness, sleeping disorder and exhaustion problems. "More than 60% of our individual customers are female. We learnt from our previous studies that what women want are not only a health insurance policy, but a comprehensive and personalised health management scheme; providing information on health news update, body check up, vaccine injection and quality healthcare services. Preventive healthcare and education is the bedrock for quality of health." Dr Marmion added. | |
The second part of the survey is about mental health, which include a self assessment on the respondents' mental and psychological health, the respondents have to score on the level of satisfaction based on the modified "Quality of Life Survey1" in 16 questions. | |
The average total score for "Quality of Life Survey" is 6.6. (Full mark: 10) | |
Among all 16 questions, the question of "Relationship with spouse or someone cherished to you" ranked on the top. On the contrary, the question of "Involvement in public affairs and community services" ranked at the bottom (16th) with an average score of 4.9. As for the question of "The physical and dynamic health", the Hong Kong respondents ranked on the 7th and scored an average of 6.7, which is a higher ranking in comparison to the UK and Sweden, where they both ranked on the 16th and scored an average of 4.8 (Full mark: 10). | |
Dr Marmion continued: "The average score for the question of "Being innovative and to express yourself creatively" was 5.5 and ranked on the 15th. There was study2 suggested that the creative arts are integral to the search for meaning and the enhancement of emotional and physical health. We aim to boost the importance of both physical and psychological health through the initiation of the BUPA Hong Kong Health Index." | |
Dr Robert Chung, Director of the Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong, said: "Hong Kong Health Index Survey is extremely meaningful and challenging. We tried to incorporate the state-of-the-art measurement methods used by the academics nowadays in this field of study, together with public opinion polling techniques, in order to collect people's self-reported information. We then integrated the information collected and generated different indices to indicate Hong Kong people's physical and mental health." | |
"This survey shows beyond doubt that sports participants are physically and psychologically more healthy than non-participants, while patients and those troubled by their physical well-beings are less healthy than other people, both physical and psychologically. Regarding the quality of life, Hong Kong people scored lowest in terms of involvement in dynamic leisure activities, creativity and participation in public affairs activities. I hope the general public should reflect more on these findings," Dr Chung continued. He also expressed his wish that such health index surveys could be conducted regularly and continuously, in order to provide useful references for promoting Hong Kong people's quality of life. | |
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1 The source of the content was mainly come from the "Flanagan Quality of Life Scale (QOLS)" questionnaire designed by Flanagan, J. (1978, 1982) in the 70's. Afterwards, the QOLS questionnaire was modified by Burckhardt, C. S. and Anderson, K. L. (2003). It is not only widely used in the US in recent years, but was also translated into different languages by many scholars all over the world. To fit in the Hong Kong culture, the terminologies of the questionnaire were based on the Chinese version of the QOLS questionnaire translated in Taiwan by Shan-Huan Han (1995) with slight modification on the wordings and examples. | |
2 Gail,1993 | |
About BUPA | |
BUPA is the only true health insurance specialist since its establishment in 1976 in Hong Kong. We provide a wide range of health insurance schemes and services for about 150,000 individuals and over 2,000 companies. | |
BUPA Group (The British United Provident Association) is an international health care specialist. Established in the United Kingdom in 1947, BUPA has been providing health insurance and care services worldwide for over 8 million people and 40,000 companies in over 190 countries. As BUPA is a provident association with no shareholders, we always reinvest our revenue into developing better health and care services. BUPA has operations worldwide including Thailand, Malta, Saudi Arabia, Australia, UK, Spain, USA and Hong Kong. For further information, please visit our website www.bupa.com.hk. | |
The press release is issued by t6.communications limited on behalf of BUPA (Asia) Limited. For press enquiries, please contact: | |
Eva HuiBUPA Health Insurance | |
Veronica Park / Jeannie Ng | |
