Table 2.

Scalability (as assessed by Loevinger’s H and reliability (as assessed by Cronbach alpha) of SF-36 sub-scales in three British cohorts

Scale	Hertfordshire Ageing Study (n = 349)		Hertfordshire Cohort Study (n = 3,215)		Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936 (n = 475)
	H	Reliability	H	Reliability	H	Reliability
Physical functioning	0.65	0.92	0.71	0.92	0.70	0.92
Role physical	0.77	0.90	0.80	0.91	0.83	0.92
Bodily pain	0.79	0.83	0.79	0.79	0.82	0.84
General health	0.42	0.74	0.46	0.77	0.54	0.81
Vitality	0.55	0.80	0.59	0.83	0.60	0.83
Social functioning	0.57	0.71	0.71	0.80	0.77	0.85
Role emotion	0.78	0.87	0.77	0.86	0.81	0.87
Mental health	0.42	0.76	0.43	0.77	0.51	0.82