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Determinants of Life Satisfaction and Self-Perceived Health in Nationally Representative Population-Based Samples, Canada, 2009 to 2018

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Abstract

We aim to 1) examine changes in the relationship between self-perceived health and life satisfaction; 2) explore potential attributable factors associated with life satisfaction and self-perceived health, and 3) investigate the role of social support in these relationships. Data analyzed were from ten national Canadian Community Health Surveys from 2009 to 2018. We found that self-perceived health and life satisfaction were positively and significantly correlated with each other, and their correlation increased over time. However, life satisfaction and self-perceived health were correlated with different sets of socio-demographic characteristics. The relationship between self-perceived health and life satisfaction varied across different levels of social support, and an additive interaction between social support and self-perceived health was observed in life satisfaction. The combined effect of both self-perceived health as ‘good’ and high social support on life satisfaction was approximately two to four times higher than what was expected from the sum of the effects of social support and self-perceived health alone. The study findings suggest targeting health promotions for population well-being should focus on identified characteristics and pay particular attention to the additive effect of self-perceived health and social support.

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Data Availability

This research was conducted in part at the Saskatchewan Research Data Centre, a part of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN). This service is provided through the support of the University of Saskatchewan, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Science and Humanity Research Council, and Statistics Canada. This research was also conducted in part at the Quebec Interuniversity Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS) at McGill University, part of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN). This service is provided through the support of QICSS’ Member Universities, the province of Quebec, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Science and Humanity Research Council, the Fonds du Recherche du Québec (Nature et Technologie, Santé, Société et Culture), and Statistics Canada.

Code Availability

All codes used to generate the results are available on request.

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Funding

This study was funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. Project #430–2020-00166).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, 6875 Boulevard LaSalle, QC, H4H 1R3, Montreal, Canada

    Yingying Su, Muzi Li & Xiangfei Meng

  2. Douglas Research Centre, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Yingying Su, Muzi Li & Xiangfei Meng

  3. School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Carl D’Arcy

  4. Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Carl D’Arcy

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  1. Yingying Su
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data preparation and analysis were performed by Yingying Su and Xiangfei Meng. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yingying Su and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xiangfei Meng.

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Participants in the original survey signed informed consent and voluntarily participated in the survey. The original survey received ethical approval through Statistics Canada procedures. The present study was approved by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Institutional Ethical Board, McGill University (#20–08-040).

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Su, Y., D’Arcy, C., Li, M. et al. Determinants of Life Satisfaction and Self-Perceived Health in Nationally Representative Population-Based Samples, Canada, 2009 to 2018. Applied Research Quality Life 17, 3285–3310 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-022-10065-9

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