Introduction: Little is known about the relationship between good self-reported health and disability in connection with life- expectancy.
Aims and methods: To show empirical evidence of the significant statistical association between self-reported health status and disability using
Spanish survey data and to discuss implications for measures of life expectancy.
Results: We model jointly absence of disability and self-reported good-health status correcting for socio-demographic characteristics
such as age, gender and years of education. More than 50% of the correlation existing between self-reported health status
and disability cannot be explained. The proportion of years lived in disability or in good health with respect to the remaining
life expectancy increases with age, but longevity is more related to disability than to self-reported bad-health. Women report
to have good health less frequently than men, while men report disability more frequently. The influence of the number of
years of education is similar for both concepts.
Conclusions: Joint factors other than basic socio-demographic indicators induce a significant association between a disability-free status
and good self-reported health. Life-expectancy in good self-reported health is longer than life-expectancy in a disability-free
condition.
Presentation slides available from: http://www.bridgingknowledge.net/Presentations/Poster_Guillen.pdf