Health Assessment Tools

Health assessment tools can give you an understanding of your health and enable you to better manage it, and many tools are available on the Internet. Health assessment tools also give you insight about what kinds of diseases you might be at risk for.

Types

Health assessment tools include a due date calendar if you're pregnant, a body mass index (BMI) calculator, a healthy body weight calculator, an asthma zone calculator and a calorie burn calculator. You can also take quick and simple surveys by answering a few questions related to conditions such as breast cancer, obesity and cholesterol. Many of these tools and quizzes are on medical sites. Just input the information requested, hit "submit" and seconds later the results appear.

Risk Assessment Tools

Similar to health assessment tools, risk assessments clue you into what diseases you might be at risk for developing later in life such as type 2 diabetes, postpartum depression, ovarian cancer and osteoporosis for women. These quizzes or surveys ask you a few simple questions then provide information based on your answers within seconds.

Warning

Although these tools are helpful, use them as a starting point, not a means of evaluation or diagnosis. They give a general idea or guidelines about certain conditions, but they may not apply to your individual situation. Be aware that some sites may even provide questionable or inaccurate information that could lead to greater anxiety about a condition you may or may not have.

Considerations

The source of the information, an author's credentials and the author's affiliations are valuable criteria that ensure accuracy of an assessment. A good BMI calculator, for example, will list the calculator's author(s), who they are and even a cautionary note telling you that the information the calculator provides is not intended to replace the evaluation of your health-care professional.

Expert Insight

Everyone's body, medical history and health is different. Using health assessment tools can help you widen your perspective, but they can't replace the professional evaluation of your physician. If, after using the tools on different websites you don't have answers that satisfy you or make sense, then talk to your doctor. Mention your own research and ask a lot of questions.

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