Are Americans feeling less healthy? The puzzle of trends in self-rated health.

ABSTRACT: Although self-rated health is proposed for use in public health monitoring, previous reports on US levels and trends in self-rated health have shown ambiguous results. This study presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of responses to a common self-rated health question in 4 national surveys from 1971 to 2007: the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, National Health Interview Survey, and Current Population Survey. In addition to variation in the levels of self-rated health across surveys, striking discrepancies in time trends were observed. Whereas data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System demonstrate that Americans were increasingly likely to report "fair" or "poor" health over the last decade, those from the Cu

SUBMITTER: Salomon JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2714952 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature