ABSTRACT
Studies have shown repeatedly that an individual's subjective evaluation of overall health is an important indicator of her/his objective health status. Self-rated health (SRH), or global SRH, is a form of self-evaluation in which research participants are asked to compare their current health status to a reference level, often using a Likert-type scale. While SRH is understood to underlie a number of conditions ranging from the physical to the psychological, the objective to the subjective and the clinical to the prodromal, the clear identification of linkages between them has been elusive. This chapter seeks to both contribute to local knowledge of aging and to advance general understanding of the subjective dimensions of health by developing and presenting a comprehensive model for describing the associations between SRH and a number of physical and psychological predictors among Hong Kong's aging population.
