What does age-comparative self-rated health measure? A cross-sectional study from the Northern Sweden MONICA Project

Abstract

Aims: Self-rated health comprehensively accounts for many health domains. Using self-ratings and a knowledge of associations with health domains might help personnel in the health care sector to understand reports of ill health. The aim of this paper was to investigate associations between age-comparative self-rated health and disease, risk factors, emotions and psychosocial factors in a general population. Methods: We based our study on population-based cross-sectional surveys performed in 1999, 2004 and 2009 in northern Sweden. Participants were 25-74 years of age and 5314 of the 7500 people invited completed the survey. Comparative self-rated health was measured on a three-grade ordinal scale by the question 'How would you assess your general health condition compared to persons of your own age?' with the alternatives 'better', 'worse' or 'similar'. The independent variables were sex, age, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index, self-reported myocardial infarction, stroke, diabetes, physical activity, smoking, risk of unemployment, satisfaction with economic situation, anxiety and depressive emotions, education and Karasek scale of working conditions. Odds ratios using ordinal regression were calculated. Results: age, sex, stroke, myocardial infarction, diabetes, body mass index, physical activity, economic satisfaction, anxiety and depressive emotions were associated with comparative self-rated health. The risk of unemployment, a tense work situation and educational level were also associated with comparative self-rated health, although they were considerably weaker when adjusted for the the other variables. anxiety, depressive emotions, low economic satisfaction and a tense work situation were common in the population. Conclusions: Emotions and economic satisfaction were associated with comparative self-rated health as well as some medical variables. Utilization of the knowledge of these associations in health care should be further investigated.

Self‐Rated Health Status and Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease in the China Kadoorie Biobank Study: A Population‐Based Cohort Study

“…Culture, lifestyle, environment, and disease patterns were all different in different cities, 26,27 which may also potentially influence both SRH and heart disease. [28][29][30][31][32][33] However, positive associations existed across all subgroups, and SRH may be a reliable measurement for predicting IHD risk.…”

“…Several reasons might explain the association among global SRH, age-comparative SRH, and risk of IHD. First, global SRH and age-comparative SRH are integrative measurements based on an individual's objective health status such as diagnosed diseases and treatment, 33,39 mental health (eg, depression, anxiety, and stress), 32,33,39 and physical dysfunction. 32,40 They fairly well reflect current overall health status of an individual and thus predict future disease events.…”

Fatigue in the general population- associations to age, sex, socioeconomic status, physical activity, sitting time and self-rated health: the northern Sweden MONICA study 2014

“…The concept of self-rated health integrates many domains of health and disease, predicts many health outcomes and relates to markers of socioeconomic vulnerability. It is even associated with stroke and myocardial infarction [ 19 ]. The relationship between self-rated health and fatigue has not been studied using validated methods, but one paper has explored variables related to self-rated health and indicates that there is an association [ 20 ].…”

The cross-interaction between global and age-comparative self-rated health on depressive symptoms–considering both the individual and combined effects

“…Review of previous papers regarding depressive symptoms was difficult using SRH-age and not SRH-global [26, 27]. As we performed the same methods as those used in the previous studies using SRH-global and SRH-age alone, the results from both health status variables showed similar trends to the CESD.…”

“…Other studies [26, 27] measured the comparative SRH as follows: “How would you assess your general health condition compared to persons of your own age?” with the alternatives “Better,” “Worse,” or “Similar.” However, our indicator also measured age-comparative satisfaction with health reflecting overall health and well-being as the same as others, and we operationally defined SRH-age. Regardless of the similarity, you carefully interpreted the outcome compared to others in different studies.…”