Self-rated health as a prospective predictor of everyday physical symptoms and illness behavior.

Objective: Self-rated health (SRH), the simple question “How would generally you rate your health?”, is one of the strongest known predictors of morbidity and mortality. Yet, it remains unclear whether this single subjective evaluation also captures more common, everyday physical health experiences. Understanding whether SRH predicts everyday physical health would enable a more precise analysis of the mediators and moderators of this relationship, thereby extending our understanding of how subjective health evaluations unfold in everyday life. The present preregistered study examined whether SRH prospectively predicts short-term physical symptoms and illness behavior in everyday life in the general population. Methods: Participants completed repeated online surveys over eight weeks, reporting their SRH, physical symptoms, illness behavior, and psychological characteristics. Results: Cross-sectional analyses showed that SRH was strongly associated with physical symptoms, beyond demographics, diagnosed health conditions, and socio-economic factors. Longitudinal cross-lagged models revealed that SRH prospectively predicted both physical symptoms and illness behavior at later follow-ups, whereas neither symptoms nor illness behavior predicted SRH at any assessment. Exploratory analyses further revealed that these effects were stronger among individuals with higher health anxiety and lower mental resilience. Conclusions: Together, these findings demonstrate that SRH captures not only long-term health risks but also short-term fluctuations in everyday physical health and illness behavior. Therefore, SRH may offer a simple tool for identifying individuals at risk for heightened physical symptoms experiences and may serve as a potential target for interventions aimed at improving everyday health.