IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i6p1256-1266.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-reported health as a cultural health determinant in Arab and Jewish Israelis: MABAT--National Health and Nutrition Survey 1999-2001

Author

Listed:
  • Baron-Epel, Orna
  • Kaplan, Giora
  • Haviv-Messika, Amalia
  • Tarabeia, Jalal
  • Green, Manfred S.
  • Nitzan Kaluski, Dorit

Abstract

Subjective health (SH) status serves as a measure of health in many studies of health-related issues as it is a good predictor of mortality, morbidity, and use of health services. The measure is used in many population groups. However, the degree to which it measures the same condition in different ethnic groups is not clear. Within Israel's first National Health and Nutrition Survey (MABAT) conducted during 1999-2001, face-to-face interviews were held with 3222 Israeli interviewees, 2379 Jews and 843 Arabs, aged between 25-64 years. Respondents reported their SH, co-morbidity, and other socioeconomic characteristics. Arabs reported higher levels of SH than Jews. In logistic regression analysis, co-morbidity was a much stronger correlate of poorer SH in the Arab than in the Jewish population. The association between socioeconomic variables depended on ethnic group and sex. The findings indicate that SH in Jews and Arabs does not necessarily have the same meaning in relation to objective measures of health, and caution should be exercised in the use of this measure in different population groups with different cultures. Arabs tend to evaluate health better than Jews even though life expectancy is lower and morbidity and mortality are higher in the former population group. Yet diagnosis of a disease increases the frequency of reporting lower SH, more in Arabs than in Jews.

Suggested Citation

  • Baron-Epel, Orna & Kaplan, Giora & Haviv-Messika, Amalia & Tarabeia, Jalal & Green, Manfred S. & Nitzan Kaluski, Dorit, 2005. "Self-reported health as a cultural health determinant in Arab and Jewish Israelis: MABAT--National Health and Nutrition Survey 1999-2001," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 1256-1266, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:6:p:1256-1266
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00059-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baron-Epel, Orna & Kaplan, Giora, 2001. "General subjective health status or age-related subjective health status: does it make a difference?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(10), pages 1373-1381, November.
    2. Kawachi, I. & Kennedy, B.P. & Glass, R., 1999. "Social capital and self-rated health: A contextual analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(8), pages 1187-1193.
    3. Borg, Vilhelm & Kristensen, Tage S., 2000. "Social class and self-rated health: can the gradient be explained by differences in life style or work environment?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1019-1030, October.
    4. Benyamini, Yael & Leventhal, Elaine A. & Leventhal, Howard, 2003. "Elderly people's ratings of the importance of health-related factors to their self-assessments of health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1661-1667, April.
    5. Appels, A. & Bosma, H. & Grabauskas, V. & Gostautas, A. & Sturmans, F., 1996. "Self-rated health and mortality in a Lithuanian and a Dutch population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 681-689, March.
    6. Yael Benyamini & Ellen L. Idler & Howard Leventhal & Elaine A. Leventhal, 2000. "Positive Affect and Function as Influences on Self-Assessments of Health," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 55(2), pages 107-116.
    7. Kaplan, Giora & Baron-Epel, Orna, 2003. "What lies behind the subjective evaluation of health status?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1669-1676, April.
    8. Shadbolt, B., 1997. "Some correlates of self-rated health for australian women," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(6), pages 951-956.
    9. Lee, Soo-Kyung & Sobal, Jeffery & Frongillo, Edward A., 2000. "Acculturation and health in Korean Americans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 159-173, July.
    10. Jylhä, Marja, 1994. "Self-rated health revisited: Exploring survey interview episodes with elderly respondents," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 983-990, October.
    11. Bobak, Martin & Pikhart, Hynek & Hertzman, Clyde & Rose, Richard & Marmot, Michael, 1998. "Socioeconomic factors, perceived control and self-reported health in Russia. A cross-sectional survey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 269-279, July.
    12. Baron-Epel, Orna & Shemy, Galia & Carmel, Sara, 2004. "Prediction of survival: a comparison between two subjective health measures in an elderly population," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 2035-2043, May.
    13. Iglesias, Edgar & Robertson, Eva & Johansson, Sven-Erik & Engfeldt, Peter & Sundquist, Jan, 2003. "Women, international migration and self-reported health. A population-based study of women of reproductive age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 111-124, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Layes, Audrey & Asada, Yukiko & Kephart, George, 2012. "Whiners and deniers – What does self-rated health measure?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 1-9.
    2. William Griffiths & Xiaohui Zhang & Xueyan Zhao, 2010. "A Stochastic Frontier Model for Discrete Ordinal Outcomes: A Health Production Function," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1092, The University of Melbourne.
    3. Au, N. & Johnston, D. W., 2013. "An econometric analysis of self-assessed health: what does it mean and what is it hiding?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 13/31, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Jylhä, Marja, 2009. "What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 307-316, August.
    5. Daoud, Nihaya & Shankardass, Ketan & O’Campo, Patricia & Anderson, Kim & Agbaria, Ayman K., 2012. "Internal displacement and health among the Palestinian minority in Israel," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(8), pages 1163-1171.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jylhä, Marja, 2009. "What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 307-316, August.
    2. Natalia Golini & Viviana Egidi, 2016. "The Latent Dimensions of Poor Self-Rated Health: How Chronic Diseases, Functional and Emotional Dimensions Interact Influencing Self-Rated Health in Italian Elderly," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 321-339, August.
    3. Alison Reynolds & Claire E. Altman, 2018. "Subjective Health Assessments Among Older Adults in Mexico," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(5), pages 825-850, October.
    4. Ania Filus & Doerte U. Junghaenel & Stefan Schneider & Joan E. Broderick & Arthur A. Stone, 2020. "Age Effects of Frames of Reference in Self-Reports of Health, Well-Being, Fatigue and Pain," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(1), pages 35-54, March.
    5. Javeline, Debra & Brooks, Elizabeth, 2012. "The health implications of civic association in Russia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(9), pages 1353-1361.
    6. Brenes-Camacho, Gilbert, 2011. "Favourable changes in economic well-being and self-rated health among the elderly," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1228-1235, April.
    7. Jonathan Houdmont & Liza Jachens & Raymond Randall & Sadie Hopson & Sean Nuttall & Stamatia Pamia, 2019. "What Does a Single-Item Measure of Job Stressfulness Assess?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Maria Magdalena Bujnowska-Fedak & Łukasz Wysoczański, 2020. "Access to an Electronic Health Record: A Polish National Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-17, August.
    9. Lyytikäinen, Laura & Kemppainen, Teemu, 2016. "Regional inequalities in self-rated health in Russia: What is the role of social and economic capital?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 92-99.
    10. Yael Benyamini & Edith Burns, 2020. "Views on aging: older adults’ self-perceptions of age and of health," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 477-487, December.
    11. Cecilie Dinesen & Signe Nielsen & Laust Mortensen & Allan Krasnik, 2011. "Inequality in self-rated health among immigrants, their descendants and ethnic Danes: examining the role of socioeconomic position," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(5), pages 503-514, October.
    12. Nahal Mavaddat & Richard A Parker & Simon Sanderson & Jonathan Mant & Ann Louise Kinmonth, 2014. "Relationship of Self-Rated Health with Fatal and Non-Fatal Outcomes in Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-13, July.
    13. Iveson, Matthew H. & Deary, Ian J., 2017. "Intergenerational social mobility and subjective wellbeing in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 11-20.
    14. Katie Bates & Tiziana Leone & Rula Ghandour & Suzan Mitwalli & Shiraz Nasr & Ernestina Coast & Rita Giacaman, 2017. "Women’s health in the occupied Palestinian territories: Contextual influences on subjective and objective health measures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(10), pages 1-15, October.
    15. Siddhivinayak Hirve & Johan Oud & Somnath Sambhudas & Sanjay Juvekar & Yulia Blomstedt & Stephen Tollman & Stig Wall & Nawi Ng, 2014. "Unpacking Self-Rated Health and Quality of Life in Older Adults and Elderly in India: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 105-119, May.
    16. Cullati, Stéphane, 2014. "The influence of work-family conflict trajectories on self-rated health trajectories in Switzerland: A life course approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 23-33.
    17. Anne M. Gadermann & Martin Guhn & Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl & Shelley Hymel & Kimberly Thomson & Clyde Hertzman, 2016. "A Population-Based Study of Children’s Well-Being and Health: The Relative Importance of Social Relationships, Health-Related Activities, and Income," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1847-1872, October.
    18. Neil J. Buckley & Frank T. Denton & A. Leslie Robb & Byron G. Spencer, 2006. "Socio-economic Influences on the Health of Older Canadians: Estimates Based on Two Longitudinal Surveys," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 32(1), pages 59-84, March.
    19. Habibov, Nazim N. & Afandi, Elvin N., 2011. "Self-rated health and social capital in transitional countries: Multilevel analysis of comparative surveys in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(7), pages 1193-1204, April.
    20. Doerte U. Junghaenel & Joan E. Broderick & Stefan Schneider & Marcella May & Alicia Bolton & Kelly P. McCarrier & Larissa M. Stassek & Sarah C. Keithly & Arthur A. Stone, 2018. "Frames of Reference in Self-Reports of Health, Well-Being, Fatigue, and Pain: a Qualitative Examination," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 585-601, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:6:p:1256-1266. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.