Poor Access to Care Among Individuals with Low Quality of Life

This issue brief describes the HRQOL of individuals included in the Health Care Survey of Department of Defense Beneficiaries (HCSDB)—specifically, the survey administered in the third quarter (Q3) of 2018. The HCSDB’s HRQOL measures were drawn from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) HRQOL-4 scale, which asks individuals to rate their general health and report the number of days in the past month that they had poor physical health, poor mental health, and functional impairment.2 The CDC HRQOL-4 is an effective tool for identifying unmet health needs, health disparities, and the symptom burden of disease and disability (Moriarty et al. 2003). Moreover, the scale has been incorporated into a number of national and state-level surveys, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, which allows for comparisons to be made between HCSDB beneficiaries and populations assessed using these other surveys.