Monitoring healthy people 2010 arthritis management objectives: education and clinician counseling for weight loss and exercise.

PURPOSE: Our goal was to monitor the progress of 3 Healthy People 2010 (HP2010) objectives encouraging self-management education and clinician counseling for weight loss and physical activity among adults with doctor-diagnosed arthritis.

METHODS

Using the national 2002 and 2006 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and state-based 2003 and 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we estimated the change in proportion of persons counseled for each objective, overall and by selected characteristics.

RESULTS

Nationally, the proportion of overweight and obese adults with doctor-diagnosed arthritis who were counseled by their clinician to lose weight to lessen their arthritis symptoms increased significantly from 35.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 32.8%-37.2%) in 2002 to 41.3% (95% CI, 38.7%-44.0%) in 2006 but have yet to reach the 2010 target of 46%. There was no change in the proportion of adults with doctor-diagnosed arthritis who had ever taken a self-management education class (approximately 11%) or who had been counseled to engage in physical activity (approximately 52%), whose targets for 2010 are 13% and 67%, respectively. States had variable findings.

CONCLUSIONS

Nationally, significant progress has been made by clinicians for weight counseling of overweight and obese adults with doctor-diagnosed arthritis but not for the other 2 arthritis management objectives. Because clinician counseling can have important effects on the latter, this discrepancy suggests a need to focus on barriers to physician counseling for these outcomes.