@article{ref1,
title="Self-rated health across race, ethnicity, and immigration status for US adolescents and young adults",
journal="Journal of Adolescent Health",
year="2015",
author="Allen, Chenoa D. and McNeely, Clea A. and Orme, John G.",
volume="58",
number="1",
pages="47-56",
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. <br><br>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. <br><br>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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1054-139X",
doi="10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.09.006",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.09.006"
}