What Do Self-Reported, Objective, Measures of Health Measure?

Age differences in major depression: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R)

“…Such checklists are widely used in epidemiological studies and yield more accurate reports than estimates derived from open-ended questions (Knight et al ., 2001). Methodological studies have documented good concordance between checklist condition reports and medical records (Baker et al ., 2001; Edwards et al ., 1994; Revicki et al ., 2004). The prevalence estimates of these conditions in the NCS-R are in accordance with those in other large-scale community surveys (Schoenborn et al ., 2003).…”

The relationship between income and health using longitudinal data from New Zealand

“…Our measure of chronic conditions is a proxy for baseline health, but has limitations: participants are only asked about a small number of chronic conditions in this survey and since the conditions are self-reported, they may not correlate strongly with actual rates of disease, leading to attenuation bias 30. In addition, some people may have adapted to their chronic condition, and not all conditions have an immediate or measurable impact on health (such as high cholesterol, which is an asymptomatic risk factor for other diseases).…”

Longitudinal examination of temporality in the association between chronic disease diagnosis and changes in work status and hours worked

“…The NPHS uses a self-report of medical diagnosis of a chronic condition, which may be a source of measurement error when compared with administrative records of objective chronic disease diagnosis 27. This source of variation may be especially salient among those living with a health condition that has not been clinically diagnosed or those who may incorrectly indicate having a health condition as a way to justify changes in work status 27. In the NPHS, employment information was collected over multiple survey cycles administered every 2 years.…”