Original articleSelf-Rated Health Across Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration Status for US Adolescents and Young Adults
Section snippets
Methods
Add Health is a nationally representative sample of young adults who were 7th–12th graders in 1994–1995. Respondents were interviewed in the home (along with one parent) in 1995 (Wave 1, ages 11–21 years), with follow-up interviews in 1996 (except for those in 12th grade at Wave 1; Wave 2, ages 11–23 years), 2001–2002 (Wave 3, ages 18–28 years), and 2008–2009 (Wave 4, ages 24–34 years) [27]. We used data from all four in-home interviews and the Wave 1 in-home parent interview. We excluded (1)
Results
At each wave, the weighted sample was approximately 67% white, 12% Latino, 14% black, 3% Asian, 3% multiracial, 5% first generation, 11% second generation, 84% third-plus generation, and 51% male. Table 1 reports self-rated health and health status by race/ethnicity and immigrant generation. There were few differences in self-rated health across groups until Wave 4, when whites had significantly better self-rated health than Latino, black, and multiracial respondents, and first-generation
Discussion
Self-rated health is frequently used to study health disparities [2], [3], [14]. Yet no studies have established that self-rated health is an equivalent construct among adolescents and young adults of different racial/ethnic groups or immigrant generations. This study addressed this critical gap [37].
With one caveat, we found self-rated health to be an equivalent construct across racial/ethnic groups and immigrant generations in this nationally representative sample. Physical and mental health
Acknowledgments
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health Web site (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). This article was presented at the
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Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest.