The Health Barometer 2011, is a more extensive examination of health-related opinions and behavior. The survey explores the specific factors that motivate individuals to make and sustain changes to their behavior in the context of health behavior change.  It also advances Edelman’s examination of health as fundamental to a company’s license to operate and, ultimately, its prosperity.

More specifically, we uncovered:

• What people across demographics, psychographics and geographies believe that being healthy means, and what barriers prevent people from living healthy lives.
• How to influence and inspire health behavior change and health advocacy in ways that are achievable and sustainable.
• The systemic role of the individual, family, community, public and private sector organizations, and government in influencing overall health.
• The opportunity and imperative for business to help improve health in order to maximize value to society and be relevant and prosperous.
• The technology, digital platforms and social media embassies people interact with to make health decisions and influence health behavior.

In order to ensure a global sample that is statistically representative of the general population, approximately 1,000 adults were surveyed online in each of seven countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and Russia); approximately 5,000 respondents were surveyed online in the US; approximately 1,000 were surveyed face-to-face in India and China; and approximately 500 were surveyed face-to-face in Brazil and Mexico.  In the global total, the US sample size is weighted down to 1,000 respondents to represent an equivalent portion of the total sample size of the other countries. The study also explored a number of demographic and psychographic factors, including disease status, information consumption, and technology use.

Some of the tools to accomplish this objective are already in place. Half of those surveyed turn to digital sources to make general health decisions, and 49% use some form of technology regularly to manage or track their health –such as a laptop, cell phone, personal home monitoring device, online health forum, smartphone or social media.  Approximately 2/3 of those who regularly use tools, devices, and/or apps for managing/tracking health find these resources helpful in improving their health.

We need to identify, innovate and develop more tools that will allow people to find and share with others the support we all need to attain and maintain health. During this week’s Social Good Summit and looking forward, let’s challenge the status quo on using social media for social good, consider health the top priority, and demand that leadership, online and offline, consider social when struggling with our most pressing health challenges.

The key to activating and connecting with these segmentations lies in our grasp of how health is defined and touches people across multi-dimensions.

Take a look at this infographic for an illustration of the break-out.

The ingredients to compel behavior change will be explored with the release of the Health Barometer data in a few weeks. In the meantime, here are some must reads and perspectives about how digital tools and technology can make a difference.

• Social Networking Sites and our Lives (Pew Research)
  Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way?

• Connect with Patients Online for Monitoring and Group Consults (HealthPopuli.com)
  Doctors and hospitals are going social, adopting social media for professional and clinical use, based on surveys conducted in mid-2011 by QuantiaMD and Frost & Sullivan and the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2

• China’s New Pilot Program: Using Social Media to aid  Health in Western China (AsiaHealthcareBlog.com)
  Gansu province is piloting a new program that would put some 2500 medical professionals on China’s various micro-blogging services… Mobile technology can also support stressed healthcare systems by making it easier for isolated regions to access public health information or by helping a small number of medical professionals follow up with a greater number of patients.

• Social Gaming to Engage Patients and Improve Wellness (KevinMD.com)
  Social connectivity to engage patients has the real potential to impact health through improvements in lifestyle, the main driver of wellness. This is in increasingly shorter supply as we collectively increase pounds, cholesterol, and blood pressure readings.

• Social Media Join the Toolkit for Hunters of Disease (New York Times)
  Social media — Facebook, Google, Twitter, location-based services like Foursquare and more — are changing the way epidemiologists discover and track the spread of disease. At one time these guardians of public health swooped onto the scene of an outbreak armed with diagnostic kits and a code of silence.

• Health Digital Check-Up: Mobilizing South Africa (EdelmanDigital.com)
  More Africans use mobile phones than any other continent and rates continue to climb. I just returned from my Edelman Escape to Cape Town, South Africa where I visited two organizations – mothers2mothers and Cell-Life – that run HIV/AIDs support programs throughout the continent with the help of mobile technology.

Please join us in the conversation via #EHB2011

• At the Mashable Social Good Summit, at 2:15pm ET on Monday, September 19, Edelman will discuss “Digital Innovation Opportunities in an Era When Health is Social.” Watch the live stream and follow us on Twitter using #EHB2011
• In partnership with GBCHealth, and in the context of the UN’s Special Assembly on non-communicable diseases, Edelman is convening an invite-only breakfast salon about ways to build health into growth and citizenship strategies and will be developing a follow-up report capturing attendee insights.
• You can continue to receive new perspectives and data cuts, as they are revealed, by subscribing to the Health Barometer RSS feed.
• Also, join the conversation using the #EHB2011 Twitter hashtag.