REGIONAL DISPARITIES IN SELF‐REPORTED HEALTH: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE OLDER ADULTS
利用中国健康与养老追踪调查的试点数据，通过小场景法控制个体回答尺度差异，发现中国不同省份老年人自评健康的标准不同，且区域健康差异被低估，部分差异无法由慢性病、人口特征和家庭财富解释。
Despite the subjectivity inherent in individuals' interpretation of good health, self-reported health is widely used in health-related studies. With data from the pilot survey of the new China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper applies the vignette method to control for differences in individual response scales and examines regional differences in self-reported health among the elderly in China. The results show that people in different provinces seem to use different criteria when assessing their health conditions. Regional health disparities are underestimated if differentials in response scales are not accounted for. A substantial share of the disparities cannot be explained by the observed differences in respondents' chronic health condition, demographic characteristics, and household wealth, a finding confirmed by a test based on inpatient-care information.