285236
Determinants of self perceived health for canadians aged 40 and older
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Marwa Farag, PhD,
School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
The self-determined perception of health has been recognized as an important predictor of health care demand and expectations. We used the 2010 Canadian Community Health Survey data to examine determinants of perceived health for Canadians aged 40-64 and 65+. Our results indicate that psychological and social factors have just as strong an influence on perceived health status as the presence of chronic medical conditions. Respondents with less than secondary education were more likely report poor perceived health. Respondents with incomes of more than 80 thousand dollars were 2.16 times more likely to report good health compared with respondents with incomes less than 20 thousand dollars. Being stressed increased the odds of reporting poor health. Respondents who reported feeling stressed were 2.91 more likely to report worse health. When comparing those who described themselves as being very dissatisfied with their financial situation vs. very satisfied, the odds ratio was .38 (CI .18-.80) indicating that financial dissatisfaction was strongly associated with the perception of poor health. The association of the presence of chronic medical conditions with self-perceived health status was much stronger in the younger age group 40-64 than the older age group 65+.
Learning Areas:
Epidemiology
Social and behavioral sciences
Learning Objectives:
Describe the determinants of perceived health status in Canada for different age groups
Evaluate the importance of social determinants of health
Compare the determinants of health across different age groups
Demonstrate the importance of factors such as "stress" and "financial pressures" in perceived health status
Keyword(s): Social Inequalities, Aging
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I conducted this analysis jointly with my colleagues because one of my areas of specialization is examining social determinants of health. I am a health economist and there is an epidemiologist and a biostatistician on this research team.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines,
and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed
in my presentation.