Page 80 - IJPS-2-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Self-rated health and interviewer-rated health:

differentials in predictive power for mortality

among subgroups of Chinese elders

1*
2
3
Haiyan Zhu , Qiushi Feng , and Danan Gu
1 Department of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 560 McBryde Hall, 225
Stanger Street, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA
2 Department of Sociology and Centre for Family and Population Research, National University of Sin-
gapore, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117573, Singapore
3 Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2 United Nations Plaza, New York,
NY 10017, USA

Abstract: Interviewer-rated health (IRH) and self-rated health (SRH) have strong and independent pre-
dictive power for mortality, but their relative predictive power has not been examined among subpopula-
tions. Because individuals from different subpopulations have distinct views, understandings, and judg-
ments about health that influence their criteria and referents for SRH, we examine whether IRH is a valid
predictor of mortality within subpopulations, which may provide added value for understanding its asso-
ciation with mortality. Using data from the 2005 and 2008 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy
Longevity Survey, this study modeled associations of SRH and IRH with mortality in various subgroups
among 12,583 older adults in China. We found that IRH is a robust predictor of mortality, independent of
SRH, across major demographic and socioeconomic subpopulations after adjusting for a wide range
of covariates. The predictive power of IRH for mortality was generally more robust than that of SRH in
most subpopulations. Our findings suggest that IRH could be a good complement to SRH among sub-
groups of the Chinese older population.
Keywords: interviewer-rated health, self-rated health, mortality, older adults, China

*Correspondence to: Haiyan Zhu, Department of Sociology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 560
McBryde Hall, 225 Stanger Street, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA; Email: zhuh09@vt.edu

Received: August 26, 2016; Accepted: December 14, 2016; Published Online: January 4, 2017
Citation: Zhu H, Feng Q and Gu D. (2016). Self-rated health and interviewer-rated health: differentials in predictive
power for mortality among subgroups of Chinese elders. International Journal of Population Studies, vol.2(2): 74–91.
http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJPS.2016.02.007. Copyright: © 2016 Haiyan
Zhu, Qiushi Feng, and Danan
1. Introduction Gu. This is an Open Access
article distributed under the
Self-rated health (SRH) is usually measured by a single question that asks respondents to rate their terms of the Creative Com-
global health status as excellent, good, fair, or poor (Krause and Jay, 1994; McFadden et al., 2009). mons Attribution-NonCommer-
cial 4.0 International License
In comparison with other health measures, the major advantage of SRH is its inclusiveness; it indi- (http://creativecommons.org/
cates a comprehensive self-image of health status beyond a narrow biomedical perspective (Feng, licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitt-
Zhu, Zhen et al., 2016). Previous studies have suggested that the process of self-assessing overall he- ing all non-commercial use,
distribution, and reproduction
alth involves multiple domains, including physical functioning, psychological well-being, health hi- in any medium, provided the
story, and health-related behaviors (e.g., Benyamini, Idler, and Leventhal, 2000; Idler and Benyamini, original work is properly cited.

74 International Journal of Population Studies | 2016, Volume 2, Issue 2