Education and Self-Awareness of Health: Towards a Better Understanding of the Variance in the Predictive Ability of Self-Rated Health

Heeju Sohn, University of Pennsylvania

Self-rated health frequently appears both as a dependent and an independent variable in health research. Its wide use has researchers examining its validity as an indicator of health and the factors that influence respondents' answers. While scholars generally do not contest that self-rated health, measured on a five-point Likert scale, is a reliable predictor of mortality, some show that self-rated health is a better predictor of mortality for individuals with higher educational attainment. This paper contributes to a better understanding of how education can lead to a more accurate evaluation of one's own health by examining how educational attainment changes the relationship between objective health indicators and self-rated health.