The Cause Of Decline In The Average Level Of Self-rated Health

The health of people is an important indicator of a country’s development. Fromthe evidence of macro-data, the GDP per capita and health status is highly related. Inricher countries, people generally enjoy a longer life expectancy and a lower mortality,although such relation become weaker as the GDP per capita grows. As a country’seconomy rises, it can invest more in infrastructure, providing cleaner environment andbetter medical conditions, that’s how the health of citizens’ health are improved. On theindividual level, the causality between income and health is ambiguous because ofendogeneity. Researchers relieve this problem by bringing in other variables and lagitems.A common indicator of health used in individual study is self-rated health (SRH),which is a subjective comprehensive measurement. Most of studies believe that SRHhas independent ability to predict risk of death, controlling other variables, such asdemographics and socio-economic status. That is why the change of SRH is important.Between1997and2006, China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducts fourrounds of investigations in nine province of China. Based on these data, the mean ofSRH is decreasing. This paper is designed to discover reasons behind the phenomenon.Two factors that induce the reduction of SRH are identified. The first is thegrowing morbidity of chronic diseases, and the second is the enlarging incomeinequality, which negatively affect the health of people with lower economic status..