Associations among adolescent self rated health status, risks and problem behaviors: Could a global measure of health provide clinical indications of adolescent health risks?

Promoting the health of young people in the United States is one key strategy for reducing disease burden and improving the health of future populations. Subjective appraisal of health status is known to be an independent predictor of mortality, morbidity, psychosocial risks and other health related behaviors in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. However, studies exploring the influence of self rated health on adolescent health risk behaviors provide mixed results, with some studies suggesting that adolescent self-rated health is more predictive of future health behaviors and health outcomes and others reporting opposite results. Issues warranting additional considerations include the need to explore determinants of adolescent problem behaviors in relation to self rated health, evaluating the interrelationships among health behaviors, risk factors in relation to perceived health, evaluating modifying effects of age, gender, and other preexisting health conditions.

Methods: The data for the study comes from 2003 Healthy Colorado Kids Survey. Descriptive statistics will be used to characterize the sample. Series of ordinal logistic regression models will be used to assess relationships among self rated health (dependent variable) and other behavioral, lifestyle and psychosocial variables (predictors).

Outcome/Results: The findings of this study would have a clinical significance in terms of assessment of adolescent life distress when other clinical information is unavailable.

Conclusion: Self rated health will provide an easy global health indicator for assessing adolescent health/risk status, even when other biomedical or clinical information is available. Interventions designed could target age appropriately to meet the specific needs of the young person.