Not feeling well ... true or exaggerated? Self‐assessed health as a leading health indicator
研究利用13个欧洲国家50岁以上人群数据，发现自评健康能显著预测未来慢性病数量变化，包括关节炎、胆固醇、肺部疾病甚至癌症风险，对健康政策制定有参考价值。
We provide original, international evidence documenting that self-assessed health (SAH) is a leading health indicator, that is, a significant predictor of future changes in health conditions, in a large sample of Europeans aged above 50 and living in 13 different countries. We find that, after controlling for attrition bias, lagged SAH is significantly and negatively correlated with changes in the number of chronic diseases, net of the correlations with levels, and changes in sociodemographic factors and health styles, country and regional health system effects, and declared symptoms. Illness-specific estimates document that lagged SAH significantly correlates with arthritis, cholesterol, and lung diseases (and weakly so with ulcer, hypertension, and cataracts) and has a significant correlation with the probability of contracting cancer. Interpretations and policy implications of our findings are discussed in the paper.