There may be privacy concerns about the government having behavioral and social data as part of medical records but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t important factors when looking at health:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants to require health care providers to include “social and behavioral” data in Electronic Health Records (EHR) and to link patient’s records to public health departments, it was announced last week.

Health care experts say the proposal raises additional privacy concerns over Americans’ personal health information, on top of worries that the Obamacare “data hub” could lead to abuse by bureaucrats and identify theft…

The “meaningful use” program already requires doctors and hospitals to report the demographics of a patient and if he smokes to qualify for its first step. The second stage, planned for 2014, will require recording a patient’s family health history.

The National Academy of Sciences will make recommendations for adding social and behavioral data for stage three, which will be unveiled in 2016.

Maybe these are separate concerns: one might argue such data is worthwhile but they don’t trust he government with it. But, I suspect there are some who don’t like the collection of social and behavioral data at all. They would argue it is too intrusive. People have made similar complaints about the Census: why exactly does the government need this data anyway?

However, we know that health is not just a physical outcome. You can’t separate health from behavior and social interactions. There is a lot of potential here for new understandings of health and its multidimensionality. Take something like stress. There are physical reactions to it but this is an issue strongly influenced by context. Solutions to it could include pills or medicine but that is only dealing with the physical outcomes rather than limiting or addressing stressful situations.

We’ll see how this plays out. I suspect, federal government involvement or not, medical professionals will be looking more at the whole person when addressing physical concerns.