Volume 42 - Article 12 | Pages 383–398
The role of education in explaining trends in self-rated health in the United States, 1972–2018
| Date received: | 22 Sep 2019 |
| Date published: | 26 Feb 2020 |
| Word count: | 2326 |
| Keywords: | education, self-rated health |
| DOI: | 10.4054/DemRes.2020.42.12 |
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.
Author's Affiliation
Jona Schellekens - Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Anat Ziv - University of New Brunswick, Canada
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