title: Socioeconomic differences in self-assessed health in a chronically ill population: the role of different health aspects.
abstract: We investigated the role that different health aspects play in the explanation of socioeconomic differences in self-assessed health. Socioeconomic differences in self-assessed health were investigated in relation to chronic disease, functional limitations, psychosomatic symptoms, and perceived discomfort/distress. In multiple logistic regression analyses, for three cutoff points of self-assessed health, significant socioeconomic differences in self-assessed health could be observed after adjusting for age and gender. After separate adjustment for each of the four health aspects, the analyses showed that for a health assessment as less-than-good and less-than-fair, psychosomatic symptoms were the most powerful explanatory factor. Perceived discomfort/distress proved to be the most powerful factor for a poor health assessment. We found that socioeconomic differences in self-assessed health could, to a large extent (72-80%), be explained through socioeconomic differences in the prevalence of the four types of health problems included in the study. For all cutoff points, objective health aspects accounted for a relatively small part of the socioeconomic variability in self-assessed health. More subjective aspects of health accounted for more of the variability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. simon@mgz.fgg.eur.nl
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van de Mheen
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: van der Meer
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Mackenbach
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors