Final answer:
Obtaining health history information is crucial for personalized patient care, informing public health decisions, and for insurance purposes. Agencies gather this data through methods like medical records, interviews, and large-scale surveys like the CDC's BRFSS. Balanced policies must address costs, quality of life, and privacy concerns.
Step-by-step explanation:
The primary reason for obtaining health history information is to improve patient care by creating a complete picture of the patient's past and present health and behaviors. This information assists healthcare providers in diagnosing health issues more accurately and developing personalized treatment plans. It also aids epidemiologists in understanding and controlling public health risks by allowing for better tracking of disease incidence and effectiveness of interventions. Health records also have significant implications for insurance purposes, as they carry data that can determine insurance risks and premiums.
Health agencies may obtain this data through various methods including medical records, interviews, and surveys. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducts the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), one of the world's largest telephone surveys, to collect health data that informs public health decisions. Policies developed around this data must carefully balance the cost of treatments and diagnoses, patient quality of life, and risks to individual privacy.