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Our primary aim is to develop and validate a population health metric for survey-based health assessment that combines information from both self-reported and observer-measured health indicators. A secondary objective is to use this index to examine gender and socioeconomic differentials in the health status of older people. We use data from the second wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) conducted in 2004 (N = 8,870). Information from three observer-measured and three self-reported health indicators was combined, using a latent variable modeling approach. A model that decomposed the manifest health indicators to valid health, systematic error, and random error was found to fit the data best. The latent health dimension represented somatic health, and was tested against three external criteria: height, waist-hip ratio, and smoking status. We present the Latent Index of Somatic Health (LISH), as well as a procedure for deriving the LISH in surveys employing both self- and observer-measured health indicators. Observer-measured and self-reported indicators were found to be equally biased in indexing population somatic health, with the exception of self-reports of functional limitations, which was the most reliable somatic health indicator. As expected, results showed that women had worse health than men and that socioeconomic advantage is associated with better somatic health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Attending private school or a higher-status university is thought to benefit future earnings and occupational opportunities. We examined whether these measures were beneficially related to health and selected health-related behaviours in midlife.Methods: Data were from up to 9799 participants from the 1970 British birth Cohort Study. The high school attended (private, grammar or state) was ascertained at 16 years, and the university attended reported at 42 years [categorised as either higher (Russell Group) or normal-status institutions]. Self-reported health, limiting illness and body mass index (BMI) were reported at 42 years, along with television viewing, take-away meal consumption, physical inactivity, smoking and high risk alcohol drinking. Associations were examined using multiple regression models, adjusted for gender and childhood socioeconomic, health and cognitive measures.Results: Private school and higher status university attendance were associated with favourable self-rated health and lower BMI, and beneficially associated with health-related-behaviours. For example, private school attendance was associated with 0.56 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.48, 0.65] odds of lower self-rated health [odds ratio (OR) for higher-status university: 0.32 (0.27, 0.37)]. Associations were largely attenuated by adjustment for potential confounders, except for those of private schooling and higher-status university attendance with lower BMI and television viewing, and less frequent take-away meal consumption.Conclusions: Private school and higher-status university attendance were related to better self-rated health, lower BMI and multiple favourable health behaviours in midlife. Findings suggest that type or status of education may be an important under-researched construct to consider when documenting and understanding socioeconomic inequalities in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]