Self-Rated Health, Gender, and Mortality in Older Persons: Introduction to a Special Section

Self-rated health (SRH) is widely recognized as a comprehensive indicator of health. Its comprehensiveness is often referred to as surprising because the indicator is based on a single question. Yet, numerous studies have demonstrated that this question may include more relevant aspects of health than can be measured in a survey, however broad the range of health measures used. The most widely quoted proof of SRH's comprehensiveness is its predictive ability for mortality, evidence for which has been found in many studies from different countries using various designs (Benyamini & Idler, 1999; Idler & Benyamini, 1997). However, little evidence exists for the reasons why SRH is such a good predictor of mortality. Possible explanations include (a) SRH, in addition to comprehensive health, also reflects preclinical, and so far unmeasurable, aspects of health; (b) SRH, in addition to current health, dynamically reflects recent changes in health; (c) the way of responding to the SRH question is correlated with health behavior, for example, optimistic responses are linked with positive health behavior, which in turn are associated with better survival; (d) self-perceptions of health are related to the psychoneuroimmunologic responses that determine the susceptibility to diseases (see Idler & Benyamini, 1997).