Measurement Resources on the Internet

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Academy Health - Health Outcomes Core Library Project
http://academyhealth.org/publications/healthoutcomesreport.htm
The Health Outcomes Core Library Module Project consists of compilations of selected books, journals, Web sites, and bibliographic databases related to health outcomes. Produced by AcademyHealth at the request of the National Library of Medicine’s National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR), the project focused on developing the core and desired sets of resources for health libraries.

Adult health status and patient satisfaction measures
www.rand.org/health/measures.html
Health insurance experiment.

Advances in Health Outcomes Measurement
http://outcomes.cancer.gov/conference/irt/
Website for the National Cancer Institute and the Drug Association's June 2004 Conference, provisionally titled: 'Advances in Health Outcomes Measurement:Exploring the Current State and the Future of Item Response Theory, Item Banks, and Computer-Adaptive Testing'.

American Cancer Society
www.cancer.org
The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and service.

American Journal of Managed Care
www.ajmc.com
An independent, peer-reviewed, medical-scientific journal dedicated to health care outcomes research.

American Medical Informatics Association
www.amia.org
AMIA is dedicated to the development and application of medical informatics in the support of patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration.

American Public Health Association, Medical Care Section
apha.org/sections/sectioninfo/mcinfo.html
Encourages research, analysis, and policy development on organization, financing, and delivery of medical care; strives for an affordable, accessible system of high quality. Forum for exploration of health status assessment.

Association for Health Services Research
www.ahsr.org
Its primary mission is to increase the contribution that health services research makes to improving the health care system and health status of Americans.

American Society of Clinical Oncology
www.asco.org
As a non-profit organization, ASCO is dedicated to achieving its charitable mission outlined by the organization's founders in 1964. ASCO strongly supports all types of cancer research, but in particular, patient-oriented clinical research.

American Thoracic Society
www.thoracic.org
The American Thoracic Society is an independently incorporated, international, educational and scientific society which focuses on respiratory and critical care medicine. The Society's members help prevent and fight respiratory disease around the globe through research, education, patient care, and advocacy. The Society's long-range goal is to decrease morbidity and mortality from respiratory disorders and life-threatening acute illnesses.

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Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
www.cdc.gov/brfss/questionnaires/index.htm
The BRFSS questionnaire has three parts: 1) the core component, consisting of the fixed core, rotating core, and emerging core, 2) optional modules, and 3) state-added questions.

Belgian Institute for Health Economics (BIGE-IBES)
www.ibes-bige.be
The Belgian Institute for Health Economics site aims at offering every quarter some new general data or specific information on health economics, with focus on pharmaco-economics, mainly for Belgium.

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Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey (CAHPS®) and Reporting Kit
www.cahps-sun.org/Products/Kit.asp
The CAHPS® Survey and Reporting Kit 2002 (the Kit) contains everything that sponsors and vendors need to field a questionnaire, analyze the results, and produce a consumer-friendly report.

CAHPS® 2.0 Questionnaires
www.rand.org/health/surveys/cahpsdesc.html

CDC Healthy Days
www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/hrqol
Provides information on how the CDC measures population health-related quality of life, how the summary index of unhealthy days is calculated, the Health-Related Quality-of-Life Measure and related information.

Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange
www.cirrie.buffalo.edu
CIRRIE's mission is to facilitate the sharing of information and expertise in rehabilitation research between the U.S. and other countries.

Child Health Questionnaire
www.thechq.com/index.html
The Child Health Questionnaires is a generic quality of life instrument that has been designed for use with children 5 years of age and older.

Cochrane Collaboration - Health Related QoL Methods Group
www.cochrane.org/cochrane/mwgfield.htm#HRQL
The overall aim of the group is preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions. The link gives contact information for the health related quality of life working group.

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Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS
faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/daweb
The Society promotes the development and use of logical methods for the improvement of decision-making in public and private enterprise.

Depression Screener
www.rand.org/health/surveys/screener.html
This self-administered depression screener was developed for RAND's Partners in Care study. The screener included the items for assessing major depressive and dysthymic disorders from the 12-month Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) and items assessing depression symptoms in the past month.

Diabetes Measures
www.med.umich.edu/mdrtc/survey/index.html
The Michigan Diabetes Research and Training Center (MDRTC) supports research, health professional training, patient education, and community outreach in diabetes and related endocrine and metabolic disorders. MDRTC has developed several survey instruments for diabetes patients and health professionals.

Drug Information Association
www.diahome.org
Trade organization sponsors and annual meeting on quality of life assessment.

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Epilepsy Surgery Inventory-55 (ESI-55)
www.rand.org/health/surveys/ESI-55.html

Evaluación Clinica Y Economica de Medicamentos
www.farmacoeconomia.com/default.htm
Spanish language site with pages on quality of life that include a list of instruments, databases, and bibliograpy.

Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research
www.future-drugs.com
Published bimonthly by Future Drugs, this ground-breaking journal provides commentary and analysis on the growing relationship between economic factors and clinical prescribing decisions, providing a practical background to informed prescribing decisions and allocation of healthcare resources.

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FACIT Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy
www.facit.org
Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy Measurement System.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration
www.fda.gov
Regulatory agency of the U.S. Many slide set related to quality of life, such as "Defining Quality of Life for Oncologic Drug Approval" Carol M. Moinpour, PhD. 10 February 2000.

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Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HaPI)
www.ovid.com/site/catalog/DataBase/866.jsp?top=2&mid=3&bottom=7&subsection=10
The Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI) database provides easy access to information on over 120,000 instruments including questionnaires, interview schedules, checklists, index measures, coding schemes/manuals, rating scales, projective techniques, vignettes, scenarios, and tests. The instruments were culled from health fields, psychosocial sciences, organizational behavior, and library and information sciences. Dr. Evelyn Perloff at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing created HaPI.

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes
http://www.hqlo.com/home/
Journal with measurement articles.

Health Outcomes Core Library Project
http://academyhealth.org/publications/healthoutcomesreport.htm
The Health Outcomes Core Library Module Project consists of compilations of selected books, journals, Web sites, and bibliographic databases related to health outcomes. Produced by AcademyHealth at the request of the National Library of Medicine’s National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR), the project focused on developing the core and desired sets of resources for health libraries.

Health-related quality of life measures
www.rand.org/health/surveys/hcsusmain/
HIV cost and services utilization study.

Healthy People 2010
www.health.gov/healthypeople
Healthy People 2010 is the prevention agenda for the U.S. Healthy People 2010 challenges individuals, communities, and professionals to take specific steps to ensure that good health, as well as long life, are enjoyed by all.

HIV-PARSE Baseline Questionnaire
www.rand.org/health/surveys/MR342/MR342.html
The HIV Patient Assessed Report of Status and Experience (HIV-PARSE) (Download PDF) is a self-administered patient survey instrument developed by RAND and the University of California at San Diego. It is designed to assess patient outcomes in clinical trials of therapies for treating HIV-infected patients. The survey instrument contains sections measuring symptoms, disability, utilization, and health status and functioning. The responses are assessed using a version of the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) measure that has been modified for HIV patients.

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Improving Chronic Illness Care Evaluation
www.rand.org/health/ICICE/tools.html
Data collection instruments designed to provide practical guidance to health care organizations seeking to improve care for patients with chronic disease.

International Clinical Epidemiology Network
www.inclentrust.org
INCLEN is dedicated to improving the health of the people by promoting clinical practice based on the best evidence of effectiveness and the efficient use of resources.

International Health Economics Association
healtheconomics.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ihea
IHEA was formed to increase communication among health economists, foster a higher standard of debate in the application of economics to health and health care systems, and assist young researchers at the start of their careers.

International Medical Informatics Association
www.imia.org
Aims to promote informatics in health care and biomedical research, advance international cooperation, stimulate research, development and routine application, further the dissemination and exchange of information, and encourage education and responsible behaviour.

International Psycho-Oncology Society The American Society of Psychosocial and Behavioral Oncology/AIDS
www.ipos-aspboa.org
The mission of these societies is to promote the psychological, social, and physical well being of patients with cancer, AIDS and allied diseases and their families at all stages of disease and survivorship through clinical care, education, research, and advocacy.

International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)
www.ispor.org
ISPOR is an international non-profit organization formed in 1995 to promote the practice and science of pharmacoeconomics and health outcomes assessment.

International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology
www.pharmacoepi.org
The International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (ISPE) is a non-profit international professional membership organization dedicated to promoting pharmacoepidemiology, the science which applies epidemiologic approaches to studying the use, effectiveness, value and safety of pharmaceuticals. ISPE is firmly committed to providing an unbiased scientific forum to the views of all parties with interests in drug development, drug delivery, drug use, drug costs, and drug effects.

International Society for Quality of Life Studies
www.cob.vt.edu/market/isqols
The goals of the society are to stimulate interdisciplinary research in quality-of-life (QOL) studies within the managerial (policy), behavioral, social, medical, and environmental sciences; To provide an organization which all academic, business, nonprofit, and government researchers who are interested in QOL studies can coordinate their efforts to advance the knowledge base and to create positive social change, and; To encourage closer cooperation among scholars engaged in QOL research to develop better theory, methods, measures, and intervention programs.

International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care
www.istahc.org
ISTAHC seeks to foster the application of high-quality and appropriate Health Technology Assessment in health care decision-making, by means of and interdisciplinary and international approach, encouraging the timely and effective dissemination of assessment information throughout the world, and supporting education and research in Health Technology Assessment.

Item Response Theory
www.measurementexperts.org/learn/theories/theories_irt.asp
The Measurement Experts Initiative's guide to Item Response Theory (IRT), includes an overview of the theory, advantages and disadvantages of using it, a list of articles in which IRT has been used in Health Services Research, links to free software for calibrating items using IRT plus a short list of IRT primers.

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Kidney Disease Quality of Life (KDQOL)
www.gim.med.ucla.edu/kdqol/

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Managed Behavioral Health Care: A Survey to Characterize Critical Elements of Public Sector Programs
www.rand.org/health/surveys/mbhc/ridgely.par.html
This survey is designed to capture key differences between managed and "un- managed" care as well as differences among managed care arrangements. It includes six domains predicted to have an impact on access, service utilization, costs and quality. The domains are: characteristics of the managed care plan, enrolled population, benefit design, payment and risk arrangements, composition of provider networks, and accountability. Data are collected at three levels: managed care organization, subcontractor, and network of service providers.

MAPI Research Institute
www.mapi-research-inst.com
MAPI Research Institute is a non-profit international health outcomes organisation established to support and promote research in the field of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL). The Institute has particular expertise in cultural adaptation and linguistic validation of questionnaires, helpful instrument pages, a widely distributed newsletter and useful links.

MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health
www.macses.ucsf.edu
Measures of socioeconomic status

Measurement Excellence Initiative
www.measurementexperts.org/
The Measurement Excellence Initiative (MEI) is charged by the VA Health Services Research and Development Service to serve as a resource for improving the overall quality of measurement in the health services research community. MEI exists:
(1) To disseminate information about finding, evaluating, and applying measurement instruments,
(2) To educate researchers in all phases of measurement methodology,
(3) To facilitate the sharing of measurement knowledge, and
(4) To advance measurement science through research.

Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) measures of patient adherence
www.rand.org/health/surveys/mos.patientadh.html
The Medical Outcomes Study was a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions. As part of the study, the research team assessed how well patients adhered to treatment regimes. The measures of patient adherence (PDF) include two types of measures. A general measure assessed patients' adherence to treatment for heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension; a specific measure assessed patients' adherence to treatment recommendations for the tracer conditions studied in the MOS and also gathered information about how often the patient carried out the recommendations.

Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) measures of quality of life
www.rand.org/health/surveys/core/
The Medical Outcomes Study was a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions. The 116-item core MOS measures of quality of life include physical, mental, and general health. Both the core survey instrument (PDF) and instructions for scoring it (PDF) are available. The instructions include references to many articles that describe the process by which the measures were developed and discuss their validity and reliability. The User's Manual for Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Core Measures of Health-Related Quality of Life summarizes the MOS measures and presents psychometric results from the MOS. It is designed to be a companion to the book, Measuring Function and Well-Being: The Medical Outcomes Study Approach (see Stewart, Sherbourne, Hays, et al., 1992 in the references listed above).

Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) sexual problems measures
www.rand.org/health/surveys/mos.sexual.html
The MOS sexual problems measures are part of the core MOS measures of quality of life.

Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey
www.rand.org/health/surveys/mos.descrip.html
This brief, self-administered social support survey was developed for patients in the Medical Outcomes Study, a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions. It is easy to administer to chronically ill patients, and the items are short, simple, and easy to understand. It may also be appropriate for use with other populations.

Medical Outcomes Study 20-Item Short-Form Health Survey
http://www.rand.org/health/surveys/core/20item.mv.html
The 20-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-20) (PDF) was developed for the Medical Outcomes Study, a multi-year study of patients with chronic conditions. The resulting short-form survey instrument provides a solution to the problem faced by many investigators who must restrict survey length. The instrument was designed to reduce respondent burden while achieving minimum standards of precision for purposes of group comparisons involving multiple health dimensions.

Medical Outcomes Trust
www.outcomes-trust.org
The Medical Outcomes Trust is a not for profit organization dedicated to improving health and health care by promoting the science of outcomes measurement, and the development, evaluation and distribution of standardized, high quality instruments that measure health and the outcomes of medical care.

MEDTAP International, Inc.
www.medtap.com
MEDTAP International performs state-of-the-art health services research, specializing in studies of health outcomes, economic evaluation and modeling, policy research and analysis, and training in outcomes research menthos. MEDTAP documents the impact of medical interventions as well as the use of medical resources and cost of care from the perspective of patients and their caregivers, health care providers, and society as a whole. Health care decision makers use this research to make better-informed judgements about the allocation of health resources.

Mental Health Inventory from the Medical Outcomes Study
www.rand.org/health/surveys/section5.html
The 37 measures in the mental health inventory are part of the 116 core measures of function and wellbeing from the Medical Outcomes Study, a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions.

The Microsoft Decision Theory and Adaptive Systems Group
www.research.microsoft.com/dtas
This group developed the "paper clip" character in Windows 95 that uses Bayesian reasoning to diagnose faults and to guess what kind of help you need. The group is investigating the use of probability and utility theory to enhance computer applications and platforms.

The MIT LCS Clinical Decision Making Group
www.medg.lcs.mit.edu
The Clinical Decision Making Group at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science is a research group dedicated to exploring and furthering the application of technology and artificial intelligence to clinical situations.

Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales
www.vanderbilt.edu/nursing/kwallston/mhlcscales.htm

Multinational Association Of Supportive Care in Cancer
www.mascc.org
The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) is a fully private, non-profit-oriented professional and research-oriented association of physicians, nurses and other health-care professionals, aimed at providing the most recent scientific and social information on all aspects of cancer care world wide. This includes physical and psychosocial symptoms and side effects across the entire continuum of the cancer experience including the enhancement of rehabilitation and survivorship.

MUSC Measurement Tools
www.musc.edu/dfm/RCMAR/RCMARTools.html
The Southern Carolina Cooperative for Healthy Aging in Minority Populations website with descriptions of Measurement Tools aimed at researchers in minority and aging studies.

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Nurse Peer Review
www.rand.org/health/surveys/nurserev.html
RAND Health has developed a way to use structured implicit review of the medical record to measure the quality of nursing care practically and reliably. Peer review relies on quality judgments by expert professionals to evaluate quality of care based on review of the medical record. A structured implicit review is more reliable because the key aspects of care and data sources to be reviewed are specified in advance.

Nursing Homes Outcomes Initative
www.rand.org/health/surveys/nursingoutcomes.html
Providers of long-term care use outcomes information for quality improvement, to obtain accreditation, and to provide evidence that they are providing effective care. This document provides a template that nursing home providers could use in developing an outcomes report. In the document, we define outcomes, discuss how they are currently being used in long-term care, and describe the outcomes measures of interest in the long-term care setting. We then provide sample tables and figures that show how to compare outcomes for a specific provider (in this example, the fictitious facility Nursing Center Inc.) to other facilities in the state or the country.

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On-Line Guide to Quality of Life Assessment (OLGA)
www.olga-qol.com/
Tools for assessing psychosocial effectiveness in clinical and pharmacoeconomic studies

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Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ III)
http://www.rand.org/health/surveys/PSQIII.html
The Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ), consisting of 80 items, was originally developed by Ware and his colleagues (Ware, Snyder, and Wright, 1976). The PSQ-III is a 50-item version that taps global satisfaction with medical care as well as satisfaction with six aspects of care: technical quality, interpersonal manner, communication, financial aspects of care, time spent with doctor, and accessibility of care. The questionnaire takes 9-12 minutes to complete.

Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18) -Short Form
www.rand.org/health/surveys/PSQ18.html
The PSQ-18 is a short form version that retains many characteristics of its full-length counterpart, the PSQ-III. The PSQ sub-scales show acceptable internal consistency reliability. Furthermore, corresponding PSQ-18 and PSQ-III subscales are substantially correlate with one another. The PSQ-18 may be appropriate for use in situations where the need for brevity precludes administration of the full-length PSQ-III. The PSQ-18 takes approximately 3-4 minutes to complete.

Patient Satisfaction Survey
www.rand.org/health/surveys/patientdesc.html
This patient satisfaction questionnaire was used to assess satisfaction with care and health-related quality of life of patients of the Unified Medical Group Association.

Pediatric Asthma Symptom Scale in English and Spanish
www.rand.org/health/surveys/asthma.survey/
Pediatric asthma survey measures have not been adequately tested in non-English-speaking populations. The authors evaluated the reliability, validity, and language equivalency of an English and Spanish symptom scale to measure asthma control in children. Parents of 234 children seen in emergency rooms for asthma were asked to report on the frequency and severity of their children's asthma symptoms at the beginning and after the resolution of the exacerbation. An eight-item scale composed of reports of cough, wheezing, shortness of breath, asthma attacks, chest pain, night symptoms, and overall perceived severity had very good psychometric properties in both English and Spanish. The reliability of the scale ranged from 0.81 to 0.87 for both languages, exceeding the standards for group comparisons. Its ability to adequately measure individual change has not been established. There were no statistically significant differences in the reliability or construct validity of the summary symptom scale by language. The results of this evaluation indicate that the eight-item scale is a reliable and valid tool that can be used to measure control of asthma symptoms in Spanish-speaking populations of low literacy.

PedsQL
www.pedsql.org
The PedsQL 4.0 Measurement Model is a modular approach to measuring health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in healthy children and adolescents and those with acute and chronic health conditions.

Pesticide Use During the Gulf War
www.rand.org/health/surveys/pesticides.html <br>This report documents the survey instrument used to access the extent of pesticide use during the Gulf War. RAND's analysis of the data collected through the survey is reported in Pesticide Use During the Gulf War: A Survey of Gulf War Veterans.

Physician Peer Review to Measure and Improve Quality of Inpatient and Outpatient Clinical Care
www.rand.org/health/surveys/physicianrev.html
Using Physician Peer Review to Measure and Improve Quality of Inpatient and Outpatient Clinical Care RAND Health has developed tools to enable healthcare organizations to measure the quality of inpatient or outpatient clinical care practically and reliably. Peer review relies on quality judgments by expert professionals to evaluate quality of care based on review of the medical record. A structured implicit review is more reliable because the key aspects of care and data sources to be reviewed are specified in advance.

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QOLID
www.qolid.org
QOLID is a new database that combines information from Marcello Tamburini's existing QLMed and the Resources Center of Mapi Research Institute. QOLID lists 1,000 patient reported outcome questionnaires, with detailed information on >300. The site has two sections: The first is unrestricted and includes the objective of development, name of the author, pathology, type of instrument, mode of administration, population, original language and the list of available translations. The second section requires a subscription and includes references, copyright, detailed contact information as well as copies of over 170 original questionnaires, 100 translations and over 50 user manuals.

Quality Metric
www.qmetric.com
QualityMetric Incorporated develops and markets patient-provided information assessment systems, including the SF-36 health survey.

Quality of Life Research
www.kluweronline.com/issn/0962-9343/current
Journal with measurement articles.

Quality of life in epilepsy inventory-89 (QOLIE-89)
www.rand.org/health/surveys/QOLIE89.html
QOLIE-89 contains 17 multi-item measures of overall quality of life, emotional well-being, role limitations due to emotional problems, social support, social isolation, energy/fatigue, worry about seizure, medication effects, health discouragement, work/driving/social function, attention/concentration, language, memory, physical function, pain, role limitations due to physical problems, and health perceptions.

Quality of life in epilepsy inventory
www.rand.org/health/surveys/QOLIE31.html
This is a short form version of the Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-89.

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RAND Health
www.rand.org/health_area
A non profit institution that aims to improve health policy and decision making through research and analysis. Survey section includes instruments and scoring for several important instruments.

RAND 36-Item Health Survey 1.0
www.rand.org/health/surveys/sf36item/
As part of the Medical Outcomes Study--a multi-year, multi-site study to explain variations in patient outcomes--RAND developed the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). SF-36 is a set of generic, coherent, and easily administered quality-of-life measures. These measures rely upon patient self-reporting and are now widely utilized by managed care organizations and by Medicare for routine monitoring and assessment of care outcomes in adult patients.

RAND-36 - Arabic Version
www.rand.org/health/surveys/arabic36.html
Arabic version of the RAND 36-Item Health Survey 1.0

Researcher's Guide to the Choice of Instruments for Quality of Life Assessment in Medicine
www.qlmed.org
QLMed is collaborating in the development of the Quality of Life Instruments Database (QOLID) which will be realized by the MAPI Research Institute.

The Research Methods Knowledge Base
trochim.human.cornell.edu/kb/measure.htm
Authored by William Trochim, a comprehensive web-based textbook that addresses all of the topics in a typical introductory undergraduate or graduate course in social research methods. Includes definitions of concepts related to measurement.

Rod O'Connor & Associates
www.rodoconnorassoc.com
A Sydney based consulting company specialising in developing measures and methods to aid health care decision making and improve health service quality. Posting on the site include an 80 page review of issues in measuring health-related quality of life.

Royal Windsor Society for Nursing Research
www.windsor.igs.net/~nhodgins/instrument_reliability.html
www.windsor.igs.net/~nhodgins/instrument_validity.html
Concise definitions of concepts related to the measurement of health-related quality of life.

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SF-36 Web Site
www.sf-36.org/
"A community for measuring health outcomes using SF tools"

Seattle Quality of Life Group
http://depts.washington.edu/yqol/index.htm
"The Seattle Quality of Life Group works to improve the health and quality of life of children, youth, and adults"

Sleep Scale
www.rand.org/health/surveys/sleepscale/
The Sleep Scale was developed for the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS), a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions.

Social and Physical Environment Notebook
www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Social%20Environment/chapters.html
Review of issues on measuring Social and Physical Environment

Society of General Internal Medicine
www.sgim.org
An international organization of physicians and others who combine teaching, research, and patient care in general internal medicine, in academic and related settings such as university hospitals, government agencies, and community health facilities.

Society for Medical Decision Making
www.smdm.org
The Society for Medical Decision Making is dedicated to promoting rational and systematic approaches to decision making that will improve the health and clinical care of individuals and assist health policy formation.

Sociodemographic Questionnaire
www.macses.ucsf.edu/Research/Social%20Environment/notebook/measure.html
The MacArthur Network on SES and Health has developed a sociodemographic questionnaire which is currently being used in a number of network sponsored projects. The instrument begins with subjective social status questions developed by the network, the remaining questions assess educational attainment, occupational status, income and assets.

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Trial Bank Project
www.smi.stanford.edu/people/sim/trial-bank.html
Structured knowledge bases of randomized trials for supporting meta-analysis and evidence-based medicine. The UC San Diego Health Outcomes Assessment Program www.medicine.ucsd.edu/fpm/hoap A multidisciplinary program with the goal of improving health outcomes assessment and quality of life. Instruments include the Quality of Well-being Scale (QWB).

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University of Michigan Decision Consortium
www.umich.edu/~psycdept/decision-consortium
UM's Decision Consortium is a University-wide distributed center for decision scholarship.

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VFQ-25
www.rand.org/health/surveys/vfq25/
The VFQ-25 is a reliable and valid 25-item version of the 51-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ). It is especially useful in settings such as clinical trials, where interview length is a critical consideration.

VSQ-9 (Visit-Specific Satisfaction Instrument)
www.rand.org/health/surveys/vsq9/
The VSQ-9 is a visit-specific satisfaction instrument adapted by the American Medical Group Association from the Visit Rating Questionnaire used in the Medical Outcomes Study, a two-year study of patients with chronic conditions.

Vulnerable Elders Survey (VES-13)
www.rand.org/health/surveys/ves/
The Vulnerable Elders Survey (VES-13) is a simple function-based tool for screening community-dwelling populations to identify older persons at risk for health deterioration. The VES considers age, self-rated health, limitations in physical function, and functional disabilities.

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Web-Based Interactive Decision Support
www.stanford.edu/group/cardport
The Cardiac Arrhythmia and Risk of Death Patient Outcomes Research Team (CARD PORT) modeling group homepage allows the user to perform interactive analyses on the underlying g model.

World Database of Happiness
www.eur.nl/fsw/research/happiness
The World Database of Happiness is an ongoing register of scientific research on subjective appreciation of life.

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1Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (CADC), University of California San Francisco

2Center for Health Improvement for Minority Elders (CHIME), University of California Los Angeles