Examining emotional, physical, social, and spiritual health as determinants of self-rated health status.

PURPOSE

To determine whether individuals' perceptions of their emotional, physical, social, and spiritual health constitute elements of their self-rated health status operationalized with a commonly employed single indicator.

DESIGN

Secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey data. Structural equation modeling with LISREL was used.

SETTING

The Yukon Health Promotion Survey, Yukon Territory, Canada, 1993.

SUBJECTS

The population-based sample was made up of 742 women and 713 men between 15 and 90 years of age; 80.3% responded.

MEASURES

Self-rated health status was operationalized with the "excellent, good, fair, poor" indicator derived from the question: "In general, compared to other people your age, would you say your health is...." Social, spiritual, emotional, and physical health status were also self-rated from excellent to poor.

RESULTS

The model's fit of the data was acceptable. Only physical health status significantly contributed to the variance in self-rated health status (55.1% of the variance was explained). Emotional, social, and spiritual health were found to have no effect on individuals' ratings of their health status.

CONCLUSIONS

Although recent conceptualizations have broadened in much of the theoretical and political discourse about health, especially in health promotion, the self-rated health status indicator measures only physical health status.