Self-rated general health
Definition
Perception of general health, including propensity to get sick, among young people aged 15 to 24, reported as mean scores on the SF-36 scale (to measure self-rated perceptions of general health) from the New Zealand Health Survey 2006/07.
Relevance
Self-reported measures of health complement more objective measures of health status and provide information about individual perceptions of wellbeing.
Current level and trends
The New Zealand Health Survey includes a general health scale that measures people’s perceptions of their overall health (the “SF-36” scale of 1-100, where a low score indicates perceived poor health, and a high score indicates perceived good health).
In 2006/07 young people aged 15 to 24 recorded an average score of 74.6 on this measure.
This is not a significant change from the 2002/03 average score for this age group of 75.1 – in fact, when age-standardised, the 2002/03 and 2006/07 scores are nearly identical.
Self-rated general health (mean scores on SF-36 scale), by age group, 2006/07
Source: New Zealand Health Survey 2006/07.
Note: The small black bars in the centre of each column show the 95 percent confidence interval. Where these bars do not overlap, the difference between columns is likely to be statistically significant.
