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AIMS: The aim of this study was to explore and describe self-rated health in middle-aged and elderly Danes using both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal design. Global and (age) comparative self-rated health are examined and compared. METHODS: This study is interview based and comprises data on 11,294 Danes aged 45-102 with more than 1,900 participants aged 90 years and older. RESULTS: As expected, global self-rated health declines with age in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. In contrast, comparative self-rated health either increases or remains stable with age in cross-sectional analyses while in longitudinal analyses there is a slight decline in comparative self-rated health. CONCLUSIONS: The age-trajectory of global self-rated health is similar in individuals and populations. For comparative self-rated health, however, the individual on average experiences a slight decline, whereas on the population level comparative self-rated health either increases or remains stable. The explanation for this is likely to be higher mortality and higher non-response among the participants with the poorest self-rated health.
Andersen et al. (Mon,) studied this question.