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Why Do Older People Change Their Ratings of Childhood Health?

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Demography

Abstract

A growing number of studies in life course epidemiology and biodemography make use of a retrospective question tapping self-rated childhood health to assess overall physical health status. Analyzing repeated measures of self-rated childhood health from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), this study examines several possible explanations for why respondents might change their ratings of childhood health. Results reveal that nearly one-half of the sample revised their rating of childhood health during the 10-year observation period. Whites and relatively advantaged older adults—those with more socioeconomic resources and better memory—were less likely to revise their rating of childhood health, while those who experienced multiple childhood health problems were more likely to revise their childhood health rating, either positively or negatively. Changes in current self-rated health and several incident physical health problems were also related to the revision of one’s rating of childhood health, while the development of psychological disorders was associated with more negative revised ratings. We then illustrate the impact that these changes may have on an adult outcomes: namely, depressive symptoms. Whereas adult ratings of childhood health are likely to change over time, we recommend their use only if adjusting for factors associated with these changes, such as memory, psychological disorder, adult self-rated health, and socioeconomic resources.

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Notes

  1. Most variables come from RAND HRS data, Version L (RAND 2011). The exceptions are childhood health ratings, childhood health conditions, childhood SES, and a recent move, which are derived from the Core HRS data (HRS 2003, 2012).

  2. In 1998, response rates for the main HRS sample, AHEAD, CODA, and WB were 86.7 %, 91.4 %, 72.5 %, and 69.9 %, respectively. In 2008, response rates were 88.6 %, 90.7 %, 90.4 %, and 87.0 %, respectively. We do not use sampling weights in multivariate analyses because the HRS user guide does not necessitate their use (HRS 2001). Since most of the variables used to construct the post-stratification weights are included in our analytic models, unweighted estimates are generally preferred (Winship and Radbill 1994).

  3. Small Internet subsamples were given these questions in 2006 and 2007. If not reported in 2008, we used the 2006 or 2007 responses from the Internet subsamples.

  4. Note that the “cluster” option is incompatible with both the xtlogit and xtologit procedures.

  5. We refer to the different comparisons as “equations” because they together constitute one multinomial logistic regression model.

  6. We also estimated intermediate models in nested blocks. It was no single block, but rather the covariates as a whole that appeared to result in this nonsignificance.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Andrew Halpern-Manners, Ann Howell, Jessica Kelley-Moore, Daniel Mroczek, and Lindsay Wilkinson for helpful comments on drafts of this article. Support for this research was provided by grants from the National Institute on Aging to K. Ferraro (R01 AG033541 and AG043544).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Purdue University, 700 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Mike Vuolo, Kenneth F. Ferraro & Patricia M. Morton

  2. Psychology Department, Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Ting-Ying Yang

Authors
  1. Mike Vuolo
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  2. Kenneth F. Ferraro
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  3. Patricia M. Morton
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  4. Ting-Ying Yang
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Correspondence to Mike Vuolo.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 6 Vital and reinterview status in 2008 by childhood health ratings in 1998, n (total percentage)
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Vuolo, M., Ferraro, K.F., Morton, P.M. et al. Why Do Older People Change Their Ratings of Childhood Health?. Demography 51, 1999–2023 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0344-3

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