title: Self-Rated Health Across Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Status for US Adolescents and Young Adults.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Health 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?
  
  
  METHODS
  Ordinary 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.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Health 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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Self-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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee. Electronic address: callen17@utk.edu.
authors.forename: Chenoa D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee.
authors.forename: Clea A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: McNeely
authors.affiliation: College of Social Work, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee.
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Orme
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000208:ethnology; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D044469:Racial Groups; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Health disparities; Immigrant; National longitudinal study of adolescent to adult health (Add Health); Race/ethnicity; Self-rated health