IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v130y2015icp259-267.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pain and self-assessed health: Does the association vary by age?

Author

Listed:
  • Rubin, Sara
  • Zimmer, Zachary

Abstract

The association between pain and self-assessed health among adults age 20 and older is examined with data from the 2003–2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a cross-sectional nationally representative survey of the civilian, non-institutionalized US population. Models emphasize whether and how the association differs across age cohorts. 5032 respondents age 20 and older were asked about their experience with pain. Responses are used to create two different pain measures: general and site-specific. Self-assessed health is categorized into groups that are ordered from fair/poor to excellent. Bivariate analyses and ordered logistic regressions reveal pain, measured both ways, have robust inverse associations with self-assessed health. Associations remain robust after adjusting for a series of health conditions and indicators plus demographic, socioeconomic and social support characteristics. Models test the effect of age by pain interactions on self-assessed health and confirm substantial variation across cohorts. Those of middle-age, 40–59, display the strongest association while self-assessed health is virtually unassociated among older–old, those 80 and older. Findings suggest that the way pain impacts self-assessed health varies by age cohort. Conclusions discuss the importance of considering pain as a health condition and the implications of the findings for well-being across age cohorts.

Suggested Citation

  • Rubin, Sara & Zimmer, Zachary, 2015. "Pain and self-assessed health: Does the association vary by age?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 259-267.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:130:y:2015:i:c:p:259-267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.02.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615001070
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.02.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Manderbacka, Kristiina & Lundberg, Olle & Martikainen, Pekka, 1999. "Do risk factors and health behaviours contribute to self-ratings of health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(12), pages 1713-1720, June.
    2. Idler, E.L. & Angel, R.J., 1990. "Self-rated health and mortality in the NHANES-I epidemiologic follow-up study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 80(4), pages 446-452.
    3. Hemingway, H. & Nicholson, A. & Stafford, M. & Roberts, R. & Marmot, M., 1997. "The impact of socioeconomic status on health functioning as assessed by the SF-36 questionnaire: The Whitehall II study," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 87(9), pages 1484-1490.
    4. 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.
    5. Schulz, A.J. & Gravlee, C.C. & Williams, D.R. & Israel, B.A. & Mentz, G. & Rowe, Z., 2006. "Discrimination, symptoms of depression, and self-rated health among African American women in Detroit: Results from a longitudinal analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 96(7), pages 1265-1270.
    6. Joshua Smyth & Arthur Stone, 2003. "Ecological Momentary Assessment Research in Behavioral medicine," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 35-52, March.
    7. Soklaridis, Sophie & Ammendolia, Carlo & Cassidy, David, 2010. "Looking upstream to understand low back pain and return to work: Psychosocial factors as the product of system issues," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1557-1566, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. H. Eme Ichoku & William Fonta & Michael Thiede, 2011. "Socioeconomic gradients in self-rated health: a developing country case study of Enugu State, Nigeria," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 179-202, August.
    2. Chen, Linkun & Clarke, Philip M. & Petrie, Dennis J. & Staub, Kevin E., 2021. "The effects of self-assessed health: Dealing with and understanding misclassification bias," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    3. Sime Smolic, 2017. "The determinants of health among the population aged 50 and over: evidence from Croatia," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 41(1), pages 85-108.
    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. Allison, R. Andrew & Foster, James E., 2004. "Measuring health inequality using qualitative data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 505-524, May.
    6. Chen, Danhong & Yang, Tse-Chuan, 2014. "The pathways from perceived discrimination to self-rated health: An investigation of the roles of distrust, social capital, and health behaviors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 64-73.
    7. Sophie Le Cœur & Aline Desesquelles & Elisabeth Morand & Cheeraya Kanabkaew & Éva Lelièvre, 2017. "Self-rated Health among HIV-infected People Receiving Treatments in Thailand," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, January.
    8. Hongliang Wang & Yiwen Yu, 2016. "Increasing health inequality in China: An empirical study with ordinal data," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(1), pages 41-61, March.
    9. Mozhaeva, Irina, 2022. "Inequalities in utilization of institutional care among older people in Estonia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(7), pages 704-714.
    10. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace, 2012. "Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 99-111.
    11. Anneke Exterkate & Robin L. Lumsdaine, 2011. "How Survey Design Affects Inference Regarding Health Perceptions and Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 17244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Richard Blundell & Jack Britton & Monica Costa Dias & Eric French, 2023. "The Impact of Health on Labor Supply near Retirement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(1), pages 282-334.
    13. David Cantarero & Marta Pascual, 2005. "Regional Differences In Health In Spain - An Empirical Analysis," ERSA conference papers ersa05p551, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Gaeul Kim & Jinmok Kim & Su-Kyoung Lee & Juho Sim & Yangwook Kim & Byung-Yoon Yun & Jin-Ha Yoon, 2020. "Multidimensional gender discrimination in workplace and depressive symptoms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-13, July.
    15. Federico Belotti & Joanna Kopinska & Alessandro Palma & Andrea Piano Mortari, 2022. "Health status and the Great Recession. Evidence from electronic health records," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 1770-1799, August.
    16. Jatrana, Santosh & Pasupuleti, Samba Siva Rao & Richardson, Ken, 2014. "Nativity, duration of residence and chronic health conditions in Australia: Do trends converge towards the native-born population?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 53-63.
    17. Mäkinen, Tomi & Laaksonen, Mikko & Lahelma, Eero & Rahkonen, Ossi, 2006. "Associations of childhood circumstances with physical and mental functioning in adulthood," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 1831-1839, April.
    18. van Ooijen, R. & Alessi, R. & Knoef, M., 2015. "Health status over the life cycle," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/21, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Masood Gheasi & Noriko Ishikawa & Karima Kourtit & Peter Nijkamp, 2019. "A meta-analysis of human health differences in urban and rural environments," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 167-186, December.
    20. Dusanee Kesavayuth & Prompong Shangkhum & Vasileios Zikos, 2022. "Well-Being and Physical Health: A Mediation Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(6), pages 2849-2879, August.

    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:130:y:2015:i:c:p:259-267. 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.