America's Healthiest Hometown
On what basis did The Villages earn the title "America's Healthiest Hometown"?
Apparently, we got this title when the alliance first formed between USF Health and The Villages. It was printed on the first hand-out at the first lecture, long before the USF Health Survey.
But then it was stated at one of the lectures that we would be compared to other retirement communities. This was to find out how we rank. In addition to that, a letter was mailed to every Villager, in advance of the survey, stating that the information gathered would be compared to other populations across the U.S.
The goal was stated from the very beginning that the purpose of the alliance was to make The Villages America's Healthiest Hometown. Then when we were told in advance that the results of the survey would be compared with other communities, that brought it down to the level of a competition. This, in my opinion, renders the survey invalid. It's a biased faulty-study. Junk-science.
What about the next survey, can it be fixed? I don't think so. (The cat is out of the bag.) It will just be more wasted public money and it's our money that's being wasted.
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