Perceived health and cause-specific mortality among Finnish men and women aged 30 and over

Perceived health is strongly associated with subsequent mortality, but the causes of this association are not known. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the association between perceived health and mortality after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, and to estimate whether the association varies by cause ofdeath. The study analyzed data from the Mini-Finland Health Survey, a nationally representative sample of 7,217 adults aged 30 and over in 1978-1980. A 12-year mortality follow-up was established by record linkage to death certificates at Statistics Finland. The study showed that perceived health was very strongly associated with mortality after sociodemographic adjustments; men reporting fairly poor or poor health had a 2.41 (95% confidence interval 1.96-2.96) times higher adjusted mortality than men reporting fairly good or good health. Among women, the corresponding relative risk was 1.71 (95% confidence interval 1.37-2.15). The strength of the association varied by cause of death. Future attempts to better understand the association between perceived health and mortality should begin at the cause-specific level. The explanations for the association are likely to vary for different diseases and causes of death