The Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment called today.

I received a call today from the above State office. They are conducting a "random survey" called The Colorado Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), yes, you read that right, Behavioral Risk Surveillance. This is not a joke. I looked up the State of Colorado website which has the entire survey listed (see below).

They asked some very strange questions such as "Is this a land line phone or cell phone?" If it's a cell they thank you and hang up. They only do surveys on landlines?? They also slip a question in later that asks if you have other landlines at your house?? They ask if you are former military or current and if you were in the Gulf War (I'm not joking. Go to the link below and read it.) They ask how many bad days (mentally) you've had this month?? (Seriously, I'm not joking.) They ask 6 questions regarding the number of phones you have in your house and if you share them with anyone. See questions 8.15 through 8.20. Of course they ask if you've had flu shots. They ask how many days you've been depressed?? (See Module 3 about 1/3 of the way down.) Module 23 asks if you store food, water, batteries, etc.... for an emergency. It also asks if you "trust government officials..." (I'm not making this up. Please read just this one section if nothing else.) Module 24 is strictly about Veterans, psychiatric counseling and depression?? Module 25 is titled (no joke) "Reactions to Race". You have to read this one for yourself.

There is obviously a survey within a survey here. And using only land lines shows they're doing exact locations since they ask for Counties and Zip Codes in the questions and won't do interviews over cellphones. And they're very interested in military service (skills maybe?). If you choose to participate you can "pass" on any and/or all questions and they'll keep going to the end.


Click here to see the survey questions:

http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/questionnaires/pdf-ques/2011brfss.pdf


Click here to see the State of Colorado website where this is located:

http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/brfss/
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System