Opinion: The U.S. needs to measure health in all of its dimensions: physical, social, and mental

When decisions are driven by data, it matters what the data are and, more importantly, what they measure. The metric can become an organization’s mission, influence a policy’s objectives and goals, and steer a government’s programs or projects.
A correct measure is incredibly powerful. Measuring what matters is supposedly what built Google and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A poor measure can be catastrophic, such as use of the “body count” to track the progress of the Vietnam War, which many have argued gave a false impression of what was happening on the ground, misled leaders, and prolonged the fighting. Read the rest…