8 Health
In the first part of this section we present summary measures of health status (Section 8.1). The second part analyses the factors associated with health status.[23]
8.1 Measures of health status
As described in Section 3.4, the HWR has extensive coverage of health. From these questions a physical and mental score can be computed as well as a combined, or overall, score. In addition, respondents were asked to rate their health as excellent, very good, good, fair or poor.
We first consider the component scores for mental and physical health. Figure 10 summarises the distribution of these health status scores for males and females. Overall there is little difference between the sexes. Considering both genders together, and taking the mean as 50, 45% of all respondents are below the mean physical score, 37% are below the mean mental score and 35% below the mean overall, combined score.
- Figure 10: The distribution of health status scores: by sex
- Source: Health, Work and Retirement Survey
Second, we examine the extent to which there is a systematic pattern of these component scores in relation to the self-reported health categories. Table 8-1 summarises the mean scores for each self-reported health category from the HWR survey respondents.
The mean scores for both mental and physical health decline systematically with poorer self-reported health status. For those whose self-reported health is given as poor, the component scores for mental and physical health fall to 80% or below of the overall mean values.
| Self-reported health status | Physical health component scores (Hp) | Mental health component scores (Hm) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Males | Females | Males | Females | |
| Excellent | 57 | 57 | 57 | 56 |
| Very good | 53 | 52 | 56 | 55 |
| Good | 47 | 46 | 52 | 52 |
| Fair | 36 | 35 | 48 | 46 |
| Poor | 30 | 27 | 43 | 38 |
| Overall mean | 50 | 49 | 54 | 53 |
Source: Health, Work and Retirement Survey
Clearly these various measures are related and to the extent they were highly correlated their use as separate independent measures would be compromised. However, as indicated in Table 8-2, the cross-correlations with the self-rated measure are modest, as is the correlation between the mental and physical component scores. Logically, the component scores are more highly correlated with the overall score.
| Self-rated | Physical score | Mental score | Overall score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-rated | 1.00 | |||
| Physical score | 0.36 | 1.00 | ||
| Mental score | 0.27 | 0.25 | 1.00 | |
| Overall score | 0.40 | 0.80 | 0.78 | 1.00 |
Notes
- [23]For an overview of the health status and needs of older New Zealanders, see Ministry of Social Development (2007).
