The Executive Health Index™ provides organisations with an externally validated measure of overall health performance of their executive group compared to a global and industry database of their peers. It enables an evidence based, quantification of overall risk as well as the ability to pinpoint sub-indices that require specific attention.
In 2017, Executive Health Solutions released a White Paper outlining The Executive Health Index™ and its findings. View here. A revised and updated White Paper for 2019 has recently been released incorporating new findings. View here.
Why is it important for businesses?
The well-documented impact of ill health on an employee’s performance is even more potent when applied to the executive population. Intuitively we have always known that healthier employees will not only be at work more often but will also be more effective during those hours.
For the first time in Australia, The Executive Health Index™ will enable organisations to identify those health areas where performance is above or below the industry and the global executive standard utilising this age and gender standardised database.
External Validation
During the derivation of the index, EHS engaged Professor Louise Ryan (Distinguished Professor of Statistics at UTS; Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health), and Associate Professor Paul Kennedy (Director of the Knowledge Infrastructure Laboratory at UTS) to review the approach taken by EHS and endorse the methodology.
"We believe the analytical approach taken by EHS is a thoughtful, comprehensive and effective approach from a statistical and scientific perspective.
We feel the creation of the various indices provides an effective method for communicating and quantifying health risk information for both organisations and individuals alike. We endorse the methodology used by EHS in this undertaking."
Why is the Executive Health Index™ unique?
The Index has been developed utilising EHS database of 70,000 clinical records. It covers 28 different health variables that have been captured during a comprehensive medical assessment.
Unlike other population databases that utilise self-reported data, The EHS database consists of clinical data taken during a face to face medical assessment. This data includes both measured biometric data, NATA accredited pathology results as well as validated surveys on mental health and lifestyle risks. All survey data is discussed during the consultation and validated at the point of entry by medical practitioners and allied health personnel.
How was the Executive Health Index™ Developed?
Executive Health Solutions (EHS) is Australia’s largest provider of executive health assessments. Over 100,000 executive health assessments have been conducted over the past decade, of which 70,000 whole “cleansed” records from 2007 onwards have been used in the construction of this Index. Importantly, this database is not static and will grow by 10,000 records each year, ensuring a dynamic Index is provided regularly on the Australian executive population.
The integrity and accuracy of this data is considered unique due to factors such as;
- Use of experienced clinicians during the medical assessments to verify and capture data
- Use of degree qualified exercise scientists, nutritionists and nurses during assessments
- Use of NATA accredited pathology laboratories for pathology
- Use of validated surveys in the assessment of areas such as psychological health and sleep
- Robust data entry platform which prevents error during data capture
- The EHS database contains records of executives from a wide variety of occupations, enabling comparisons of health risks across industries.
Data used in
Calculation of Indices
In assessing the data to be used for the Executive Health Index™ an extensive literature review was performed to determine those measurements that were scientifically the most significant in determining a validated health risk profile. In total, data for 28 variables were analysed across multiple 10-year age and gender groupings from 20 to 80 years of age. The metrics included in these analytics were;
1) Waist Measurement
2) Body Mass Index (BMI)
3) Difference between actual and predicted waist size
4) Smoking
5) Systolic Blood Pressure
6) Diastolic Blood Pressure
7) Maximal Oxygen Uptake (VO2max)
8) FEV1/FVC Ratio
9) Blood Cholesterol (fasting)
10) Blood HDL (fasting)
11) Blood LDL (fasting)
12) Blood Triglycerides (fasting)
13) Blood Glucose (fasting)
14) Weekly Alcohol Consumption
15) Exercise Frequency
16) Exercise Duration
17) Exercise Intensity
18) Abdominal Strength
19) Hamstring Flexibility
20) Nutrition – Fruit (daily)
21) Nutrition – Vegies (daily)
22) Wholegrain Foods (daily)
23) DASS Depression Score
24) DASS Anxiety Score
25) DASS Stress Score
26) Epworth Sleep Score
27) Breakfast Consumption (frequency)
28) Takeaway/Rest (frequency)
From these parameters, age and gender related percentile rankings were derived. Because all data then exists as a score out of 100, this data could then be weighted and aggregated according to their focus, to derive 11 “Sub-Indices". These can be further aggregated and weighted to derive four “Main Indices” which were then combined to derive an overall score – The Executive Health index™.
