Self-Rated Health of Italian Elderly

Self-rated health is the evaluation that individuals give about their health, as the result of multiple and complex interactions of physical, psychological, and social aspects of health. When assessing their condition, people are able to account simultaneously for all the dimensions that constitute the concept of health, making self-rated health a global, complete, and reliable evaluation of individual health status and general well-being. Many studies suggest that self-rated health may be modified by demographics, as well as by social and economic factors, that it is a valid predictor of mortality, and is closely linked to objective health conditions, particularly for elderly people.