Abstract
Using data from the 1980 National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey (N = 11,530), four commonly used health status indicators are interpreted in terms of the underlying medical conditions they reflect. It is found that self-rated health status, role limitations, restricted activity days, and functional limitations measure similar conditions. These conditions tend to be chronic and severe; heart and cerebrovascular disease are especially associated with poor health as measured by all of the variables. Disability days is most likely to reflect acute, transitory morbidity. Practical suggestions for the appropriate use of the four variables are made. In addition, the conditions associated with the most ambulatory utilization of health services are identified. Among these conditions, those which are and are not measured adequately by the health status indicators are disclosed. It is concluded that the health status variables, either individually or as a group, do not measure many variations in health that are strongly related to utilization.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Goldstein M. S., Siegel J. M., Boyer R. Predicting changes in perceived health status. Am J Public Health. 1984 Jun;74(6):611–614. doi: 10.2105/ajph.74.6.611. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hulka B. S., Wheat J. R. Patterns of utilization. The patient perspective. Med Care. 1985 May;23(5):438–460. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198505000-00009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Stewart A. L., Ware J. E., Jr, Brook R. H. Advances in the measurement of functional status: construction of aggregate indexes. Med Care. 1981 May;19(5):473–488. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198105000-00001. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Thomas J. W., Lichtenstein R. Including health status in Medicare's Adjusted Average Per Capita Cost capitation formula. Med Care. 1986 Mar;24(3):259–275. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198603000-00008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Walker S. H., Duncan D. B. Estimation of the probability of an event as a function of several independent variables. Biometrika. 1967 Jun;54(1):167–179. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ware J. E., Jr, Brook R. H., Davies A. R., Lohr K. N. Choosing measures of health status for individuals in general populations. Am J Public Health. 1981 Jun;71(6):620–625. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.6.620. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]