Self-Rated Health and Mortality: A Review of Twenty-Seven Community Studies
1997/03/01 by Ellen L. Idler, Ellen Idler, Yael Benyamini · 8,650 citations
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Covariate #Demography #Econometrics #Environmental health #Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations #Gerontology #Health disparities and outcomes #Inclusion (mineral) #Medicine #Nutritional Studies and Diet #Psychology #Self-rated health #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.2307/2955359
published in Journal of Health and Social Behavior 38(1), 21 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 1997/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract
We examine the growing number of studies of survey respondents' global self-ratings of health as predictors of mortality in longitudinal studies of representative community samples. Twenty-seven studies in U.S. and international journals show impressively consistent findings. Global self-rated health is an independent predictor of mortality in nearly all of the studies, despite the inclusion of numerous specific health status indicators and other relevant covariates known to predict mortality. We summarize and review these studies, consider various interpretations which could account for the association, and suggest several approaches to the next stage of research in this field.
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