Cross-National Comparison of Self-Rated Health as a Predictor of Mortality in the United States and Canada

• In Event: 343 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Subjective Health Assessment

Abstract

Self-Rated Health (SRH) is a widely used survey instrument that has been repeatedly demonstrated as a valid proxy measure for objective health. As such, SRH is reliably and consistently associated with incidence of morbidity and mortality in the United States and Canada. For example, a recent paper by Stenholm et al. (2014) that analyzed the U.S. Health and Retirement Study showed that longitudinal SRH measures were associated with mortality up to 12 years prior to death for both sexes and all age groups, controlling for lifestyle risk factors and diagnosed diseases. This paper systematically replicates the U.S. study with comparable data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey (NPHS), which is a longitudinal survey that closely matches the time period, measurement frequency, and duration of the US data. Our analysis finds that, as in the US, reporting poor SRH is a significant predictor of mortality in Canada up to 12 years prior to death, versus matched surviving controls. However, Canadians surveyed in the NPHS were better able to predict their own subsequent mortality by reporting poor SRH compared to their American counterparts. We discuss potential reasons why SRH, while remaining a subjective measure of health, may depend on objective health information obtained from interactions with a physician or other health care provider.

Authors

• James Falconer, McGill University

• Amelie Quesnel-Vallée, McGill University