Utility of health data from social surveys: Is there a gold standard for measuring morbidity?

Most sociological and epidemiological studies of health status in adulthood rely on reports of morbidity from respondents to social surveys. This stud y compares self-reported morbidity with indicators of morbidity from physic ians' evaluations and examines the predictive validity of each indicator on self-assessed health and mortality in adulthood Special attention is given to differences in the measures between white and African American adults. Adults from a large national survey received a detailed medical examination by a physician; they also were asked about the presence of 36 health condi tions. Results indicate that self-reported morbidity is equal or superior t o physician-evaluated morbidity in a prognostic sense. Both types of morbid ity predict self-assessed health for white respondents, but physician-evalu ated morbidity is not related to either self-assessed health or mortality f or African American respondents.