Self-Rated Health Across Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Status for US Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

PurposeHealth disparities research seeks to understand and eliminate differences in health based on social status. Self-rated health is often used to document health disparities across racial/ethnic and immigrant groups, yet its validity for such comparative research has not been established. To be useful in disparities research, self-rated health must measure the same construct in all groups, that is, a given level of self-rated health should reflect the same level of mental and physical health in each group. This study asks, Is the relationship between self-rated health and four indicators of health status—body mass index, chronic conditions, functional limitations, and depressive symptoms—similar for adolescents and young adults of different races/ethnicities and immigrant generations? MethodsOrdinary least squares regression was used to examine associations of self-rated health with the four indicators of health status both cross-sectionally and longitudinally using four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. ResultsHealth indicators explained similar amounts of variance in self-rated health for all racial/ethnic and immigrant generation groups. The cross-sectional association between the health indicators and self-rated health did not vary across groups. The longitudinal association between depressive symptoms and chronic conditions and self-rated health also did not differ across groups. However, an increase in body mass index was associated more negatively with later self-rated health for Asians than for whites or blacks. ConclusionsSelf-rated health is valid for disparities research in large, population-based surveys of US adolescents and young adults. In many of these surveys self-rated health is the only measure of health.