TY - JOUR
T1 - Self-Rated Physical Health Among Working-Aged Adults Along the Rural-Urban Continuum — United States, 2021
AU - Rhubart, Danielle C.
AU - Monnat, Shannon M.
N1 - Funding Information:
All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. Danielle C. Rhubart and Shannon M. Monnat report infrastructural support from the Population Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University, which receives center funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NIH); infrastructural support from the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion; network support from the Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging (INRPHA), funded by the National Institute on Aging, NIH; and research network support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Experiment Station Multistate Research Project, W4001: Social, Economic, and Environmental Causes and Consequences of Demographic Change in Rural America. Danielle C. Rhubart also reports pilot grant funding from INRPHA. Shannon M. Monnat reports research grant funding from the National Institute on Aging and research infrastructure support from the Syracuse University Center for Aging and Policy Studies, which received center funding from the National Institute on Aging, NIH. No other potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, MMWR Recommendations and Reports. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Poor self-rated physical health is strongly associated with morbidity and premature mortality (1,2). Studies that are now a decade old report worse self-rated health among rural than among urban residents (3,4). Whether the rural disadvantage persists in 2021 is uncertain and the contributing factors to contemporary rural-urban variations in self-rated health are not known. Rural America is diverse by population size and adjacency to metropolitan areas, and rural populations vary demographically and socioeconomically. This analysis used data from the National Well-being Survey (NWS), a national sample of approximately 4,000 U.S. working-aged adults conducted during February and March 2021 to examine differences in self-rated physical health among residents of large urban; medium/small urban; metro-adjacent rural; and remote rural counties. Residents of medium/small urban, metro-adjacent rural, and remote rural counties had significantly higher probabilities of reporting fair/poor self-rated physical health than their large urban county peers. There were no significant differences by sex or race/ethnicity in self-rated physical health. Individual-level socioeconomic resources (including higher educational attainment, higher household income, and higher probability of employment) contributed to the advantage among residents of large urban counties. Although there is no single solution to reducing rural-urban health disparities, these findings suggest that reducing socioeconomic disparities is essential.
AB - Poor self-rated physical health is strongly associated with morbidity and premature mortality (1,2). Studies that are now a decade old report worse self-rated health among rural than among urban residents (3,4). Whether the rural disadvantage persists in 2021 is uncertain and the contributing factors to contemporary rural-urban variations in self-rated health are not known. Rural America is diverse by population size and adjacency to metropolitan areas, and rural populations vary demographically and socioeconomically. This analysis used data from the National Well-being Survey (NWS), a national sample of approximately 4,000 U.S. working-aged adults conducted during February and March 2021 to examine differences in self-rated physical health among residents of large urban; medium/small urban; metro-adjacent rural; and remote rural counties. Residents of medium/small urban, metro-adjacent rural, and remote rural counties had significantly higher probabilities of reporting fair/poor self-rated physical health than their large urban county peers. There were no significant differences by sex or race/ethnicity in self-rated physical health. Individual-level socioeconomic resources (including higher educational attainment, higher household income, and higher probability of employment) contributed to the advantage among residents of large urban counties. Although there is no single solution to reducing rural-urban health disparities, these findings suggest that reducing socioeconomic disparities is essential.
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U2 - 10.15585/mmwr.mm7105a1
DO - 10.15585/mmwr.mm7105a1
M3 - Article
C2 - 35113850
AN - SCOPUS:85123974104
SN - 1057-5987
VL - 71
SP - 161
EP - 166
JO - MMWR Recommendations and Reports
JF - MMWR Recommendations and Reports
IS - 5
ER -