Abstract
BACKGROUND The percentage of older adults in the United States reporting being in good health has increased since the 1980s. OBJECTIVE This study tries to explain long-term trends in self-rated health in the United States. METHODS We used 47 years of repeated cross-sectional data from the National Health Interview Survey to estimate regression models that predict trends in self-rated health. RESULTS Our results show that the improvement in self-rated health of men as well as women aged 50–84 is largely explained by gains in educational attainment. Self-rated health has slightly improved among those with post-secondary education, while it did not improve among those without post-secondary education. CONTRIBUTION This study is one of the few to try to explain long-term trends in self-rated health. It does so for a much longer period of time than any previous study.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 383-398 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Demographic Research |
| Volume | 42 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. An earlier version was presented at the Dutch Demography Day, Utrecht, November 2019.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Jona Schellekens & Anat Ziv