Citation

Allen CD, McNeely CA, Orme JG. J. Adolesc. Health 2015; 58(1): 47-56.

Affiliation

College of Social Work, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.09.006

PMID

26552738

Abstract

PURPOSE: Health disparities research seeks to understand and eliminate differences in health based on social status. Self-rated health is often used to document health disparities across racial/ethnic and immigrant groups, yet its validity for such comparative research has not been established. To be useful in disparities research, self-rated health must measure the same construct in all groups, that is, a given level of self-rated health should reflect the same level of mental and physical health in each group. This study asks, Is the relationship between self-rated health and four indicators of health status-body mass index, chronic conditions, functional limitations, and depressive symptoms-similar for adolescents and young adults of different races/ethnicities and immigrant generations? METHODS: Ordinary least squares regression was used to examine associations of self-rated health with the four indicators of health status both cross-sectionally and longitudinally using four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health.

RESULTS: Health indicators explained similar amounts of variance in self-rated health for all racial/ethnic and immigrant generation groups. The cross-sectional association between the health indicators and self-rated health did not vary across groups. The longitudinal association between depressive symptoms and chronic conditions and self-rated health also did not differ across groups. However, an increase in body mass index was associated more negatively with later self-rated health for Asians than for whites or blacks.

CONCLUSIONS: Self-rated health is valid for disparities research in large, population-based surveys of US adolescents and young adults. In many of these surveys self-rated health is the only measure of health.

Language: en