Ethnic Differences in Socioeconomic and Health Determinants Related to Self-Rated Health Status: A Study on Community-Dwelling Israeli Jews and Arabs in Old Age

Self-rated health (SRH) is widely used as a proxy for general health status. In old age, SRH has been found to be a strong predictor of morbidity, physical functioning, recovery from illness, use of health services, and mortality. This study was designed to examine differences in socioeconomic and health determinants related to self-rated health status among community-dwelling Jews and Arabs aged 65+ years. Cross-sectional data from 2011 on such Jews and Arabs were extracted from reprehensive National Surveys. The association between socioeconomic and health factors with poor SRH was estimated using three hierarchical logistic regression models. The majority of the respondents were Jews (86%), with a mean age of 73.1 (+/- 6.3) years. The study revealed that older Arabs are disadvantaged according to almost every socioeconomic and health indicator compared to Jews. Poor SRH was significantly associated with age (OR = 1.03, p = 0.002), ethnicity (Jews OR = 2.62, p < 0.001), unemployment/retirement (OR = 2.03, p < 0.001), low income (OR = 3.03, p < 0.001), low education (OR = 1.37, p = 0.013), absence of physical activity (OR = 2.17, p < 0.001), dentures (OR = 1.40, p = 0.002), and prevalence of one or more chronic diseases (OR = 4.06, p < 0.001). The findings therefore indicated that these factors need to be detected and focused on by health professionals in order to improve the population's general health status.