Understanding the social determinants of self-rated health: a basis for addressing health inequalities and strengthening families

Self-rated health (SRH) is among the most widely used measures of general health status in population-based social and epidemiologic health studies, and is based on the individuals perception of their health (Jylh 2009). Numerous longitudinal studies have validated SRH as a surrogate for more objective health measures (Frankenberg & Jones, 2004; Jylh et al. 2006). A series of national and international studies has consistently shown that SRH is a good predictor of health outcome, survival, impending morbidity and mortality of various diseases (DeSalvo et al. 2006; Frankenberg & Jones 2004; Halford et al. 2012; Murata et al. 2006). SRH is a social construct and the effects of social conditions on individual health have long been acknowledged (Brunner & Marmot 2005; Marmot & Wilkinson 2005). As such, SRH has been used as the outcome variable in studies that investigate social inequalities in health between population groups (Delpierre et al. 2009; Mackenbach et al. 2008).