title: [A disease substitution index: construction and validation].
abstract: Empirical research dealing with health and illness often has the problem that the data sets contain a variety of health related variables but no variables abou the appearance of diseases and complaints. In order to solve this problem a disease substitution index (DSI) based on data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP, 1985) and the national health survey conducted in the framework of the German Cardiovascular Prevention Study (GCP, 1984-1986) was constructed. Consisting of the variables "medical attendance", "hospital attendance" "existence of chronical diseases" the DSI shows statistically significant association with a series of diseases and complaints. These findings indicate that the DSI can be used to substitute diseases and/or complaints in datasets with the mentioned variables but no informations about diseases or complaints.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Soziale Medizin, Freie Universität Berlin.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fuchs
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hansmeier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006302:Health Services Research; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006306:Health Surveys; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009819:Office Visits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results