Correlates of self-rated health status in the context of South Asia

Veena S. Kulkarni, Arkansas State University

Several medical, behavioral, and psychosocial risk factors such as smoking, alcohol, overweight, disease history, and current health status have been recorded as predictors of mortality. Socioeconomic status and measures of social networks and support are also routinely included in mortality studies. Self-rated health has emerged as a strong, independent predictor of well being in general and mortality, in particular. While considerable interest and research exists in understanding the relationship between self-rated health and mortality patterns in developed industrialized nations, there is very little to total absence of exploring such a relationship in developing countries. Present paper employing perhaps the only comprehensive and a recent data set put forward by the World Health Organization examines the correlates of self-rated health status in the context of the five South Asian countries – Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka that provide a combination of similar and diverse structural and cultural characteristics.