Subjective health status as a determinant of mortality among African-American elders

This study examines the efficacy of self-rated health as a determinant of 6-year survival among the 1209 African-American respondents in the Longitudinal Study on Aging (LSOA). The association between self-rated health and mortality risk has been established previously; however, this relationship has not been directly tested in a nonwhite sample. Findings indicate that self-rated health is a predictor of mortality that is independent of several control variables (income, sex, age, education, and marital status) and two objective health status indicators (bed days and doctor visits). However, it is not independent of limitations with activities of daily living. When all three objective health measures were included in a single model, self-rated health was not an independent predictor of mortality. However, when the full model was specified on sex-specific subsamples, the analysis found that self-rated health was an independent predictor of mortality for women, but not for men.