Self-rated health and mortality over three decades - Results from a time-dependent covariate analysis

Previous longitudinal studies assessing relative mortality risks associated with fair or poor self-rated health have differed in the extent to which o bserved relative risks are explained by disease burden and health risk fact ors. Gender and ethnic differences have rarely been assessed. The authors u sed proportional hazards models with time-dependent covariates to examine a ssociations between fair or poor self-rated health and mortality over 28 ye ars for 5,976 Alameda County Study respondents age 21 to 94 at baseline. Ad justments for a number of demographic variables, chronic conditions, mobili ty impairment, and health risk factors accounted for about half of the unad justed relative risk. No gender or ethnicity differences in relative risk c omparisons were found, but consistent with other studies, lower relative ri sks associated with increasing age were found. The authors conclude that se lf-rated health is a deceptively simple variable that likely measures a gre at deal more than disease burden.