Validity and Stability of Self-reported Health Among Adolescents in a Longitudinal, Nationally Representative Survey

Self-reported health is stable from early and middle adolescence to young adulthood. Self-reported health is also a valid measure of a variety of physical and emotional dimensions of adolescent well-being. The stability and validity of self-reported health do not differ by the gender of the child, although there is slightly greater concordance when the reporting parent is the same gender as the child.