Self-assessed health among Norwegian adults

Previous research has used self-assessed health as a proxy for 'objective' health rating as an important element in sick role behaviour, as well as a predictor of life satisfaction and mortality. However, several authors have suggested that self-evaluations of health are not only reflections of the underlying medical condition. It has been claimed that personal and social background characteristics such as sex, age, race, and occupational status contribute independently to subjectively appraised health. The present article uses data from a large, nation-wide sample of Norwegian adults (N = 7302) to estimate the relative predictive power of 'medical' variables (number and duration of illness episodes, diagnosis, functional impairment) on the one hand and 'socio-cultural' variables (age, sex, socio-economic status, type of work, income, household composition/life cycle) on the other. It is concluded that when a sufficiently fine-grained array of medical information is available, socio-cultural factors contribute only marginally to self-assessments of health.