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True Health vs. Response Styles: Exploring Cross-country Differences in Self-reported Health

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Author Info
Hendrik Jürges

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to decompose cross-national differences in self-reported general health into parts explained by differences in "true" health, measured by diagnosed conditions and measurements, and parts explained by cross-cultural differences in response styles. The data used were drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe 2004 (SHARE), using information from 22,000 individuals aged 50 and over from 10 European countries. Self-rated general health shows large cross-country variations. According to their self-reports, the healthiest respondents live in the Scandinavian countries and the least healthy live in Southern Europe. Counterfactual self-reported health distributions that assume identical response styles in each country show much less variation in self-reports than factual selfreports. Danish and Swedish respondents tend to largely over-rate their health (relative to the average) whereas Germans tend to under-rate their health. If differences in reporting styles are taken into account, cross-country variations in general health are reduced but not eliminated. Failing to account for differences in reporting styles may yield misleading results.

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File URL: http://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.44377.de/dp588.pdf
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Paper provided by DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research in its series Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin with number 588.

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Length: 29 p.
Date of creation: 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp588

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Related research
Keywords: Self-assessed health; response bias; cross-national study;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Barsky R. & Bound J. & Charles K.K. & Lupton J.P., 2002. "Accounting for the Black-White Wealth Gap: A Nonparametric Approach," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 663-673, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Lindeboom, Maarten & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2004. "Cut-point shift and index shift in self-reported health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1083-1099, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Crossley, Thomas F. & Kennedy, Steven, 2002. "The reliability of self-assessed health status," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 643-658, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Michael Baker & Mark Stabile & Catherine Deri, 2001. "What do Self-Reported, Objective, Measures of Health Measure?," NBER Working Papers 8419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2004. "Sex Differences in Morbidity and Mortality," Working Papers 171, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies.. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Agar Brugiavini & Tullio Jappelli & Guglielmo Weber, 2002. "The Survey on Health, Aging and Wealth," CSEF Working Papers 86, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Erik Meijer & Arie Kapteyn & Tatiana Andreyeva, 2008. "Health Indexes and Retirement Modeling in International Comparisons," Working Papers 614, RAND Corporation Publications Department. [Downloadable!]
  2. Beomsoo Kim & Christopher J. Ruhm, 2009. "Inheritances, Health and Death," NBER Working Papers 15364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. José M. R. Murteira & Óscar D. Lourenço, 2007. "Health Care Utilization and Self-Assessed Health Specification of Bivariate Models Using Copulas," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 07/27, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
  4. Stefanie Schurer, 2008. "Discrete Heterogeneity in the Impact of Health Shocks on Labour Market Outcomes," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2008n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
  5. Andrew E. Clark & Yarine Fawaz, 2009. "Valuing jobs via retirement: European evidence," PSE Working Papers 2009-18, PSE (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
  6. Viola Angelini, Danilo Cavapozzi, Luca Corazzini, Omar Paccagnella., . "Do Danes and Italians Rate Life Satisfaction in the Same Way? Using Vignettes to Correct for Individual-Specific Scale Biases," ISLA Working Papers 31, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Franco Peracchi & Claudio Rossetti, 2009. "Gender and regional differences in self-rated health in Europe," CEIS Research Paper 142, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 30 Sep 2009. [Downloadable!]
  8. Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2009. "Measurement of Health, the Sensitivity of the Concentration Index, and Reporting Heterogeneity," SOEPpapers 211, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Sandy Tubeuf & Marc Perronnin, 2008. "New prospects in the analysis of inequalities in health: a measurement of health encompassing several dimensions of health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/01, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
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