Health and Mortality: A Longitudinal Analysis of the ECHP Data

Daniele Spizzichino, Università di Roma "La Sapienza"

The reliability of self-rated health as predictor of mortality has been found to be as good as or better than measures such as functional ability, chronic diseases and psychological well-being. A previous study carried out on Italian data show that self-perceived health is the strongest indicator of elderly mortality, also after controlling by gender, age, socio-economical status and objective health. Who rate their health as “poor” have a higher risk of dying compared with people who feel “good”. The data source is the European Community Household Panel, a longitudinal survey carried out in 14 European countries from 1994 to 2001. In this study will be applied logistic regressions and proportional hazard models taking into account also the unobserved heterogeneity and the fact that self-rated health could be endogenous to the process of mortality. Moreover, the aim of this study is to evaluate the role played by other relevant factors (on self-rated health and on mortality) such as socio-economic conditions of the family (poverty, housing discomfort) and the employment history of the individual on his survival. Also a comparison between different countries will be carried out.