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Montana BRFSS Working Group

Background

The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (MDPHHS) receives funds in a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to operate a state-based Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) that is conducted on a calendar year basis.

As part of this cooperative agreement with CDC, each state has the opportunity to add questions to the BRFSS survey to meet state-specified needs. In order to add state questions, certain procedures must be followed and resources provided to analyze the data. CDC financially supports a limited number of core sections and does not provide a full analysis of the data.

Working Group Composition and Goals

The Working Group is comprised of program representatives within the Department of Public Health and Human Services as well as other state agencies and health-related organizations interested in adding questions to Montana's survey and utilizing the results for program planning.

The goal of the Montana Working Group is to facilitate the acquisition of timely, accurate, and useable health-status and health-risk behavioral data on Montana adults using the BRFSS survey. More specifically, the objectives of the Working Group are as follows:

  • Participate in questionnaire development (i.e., content and length).
  • Make recommendations for modifications of the BRFSS sampling design.
  • Make recommendations regarding the analysis and reporting of the current data.
  • Maximize efficiency and avoid duplication.
  • Establish criteria for adding questions to BRFSS (optional modules and state-added questions) and review requests for adding questions.
  • Make recommendations regarding cost for adding questions.
  • Monitor status of current data collection through updates from the Coordinator.· Make recommendations regarding participation in the BRFSS by other entities (e.g., DPHHS programs, other state agencies, health-related organizations).

Decisions are made with the consent of the majority of the members although final decisions are the responsibility of the BRFSS Coordinator.

Timeframe and Submission Process

Using procedures and criteria established, all requests for additional data items must be submitted electronically to the BRFSS Coordinator in July of the year preceding the upcoming year’s BRFSS survey.   Montana's ‘Criteria and Procedures for Addition of Data Items’ brochure is available for downloading in PDF format.

Requests for inclusion of additional data items are reviewed and acted on by the state BRFSS Working Group, the BRFSS Coordinator, and the BRFSS Director. Consultation may also occur with the contracted telephone surveyors and the Behavioral Sciences Branch of CDC.

Under normal circumstances, optional modules and state-added questions will be appended at the end of the questionnaire to avoid biasing any responses to core or optional module questions.

CDC approval is required to place any module or state-added question to the core. Core questions take precedence. No questions will be added which may adversely affect the response or refusal rates of the survey.

For additional information about BRFSS or the procedures for adding questions to the survey, visit the contact page for a variety of means of communicating with the BRFSS Coordinator.