🤓Glad to see this paper out with Sonja Spitzer and Patrick Lazarevic. We analyse discrepancies between self-reported and tested health limitations across 25 countries from six world regions. comparativepopulationstudies.de/index.php/CP...

Lastly, because tested health revealed a more consistent pattern both by gender and age across very different countries, it seems like a better candidate to base cross-country comparisons on, especially when comparing a highly diverse set of countries.

however, if the goal is targeted intervention on health for actual conditions, tested health measures are more reliable, at least in capturing the age pattern of health.

we find that self-reports on health may still be important if the goal is to improve environmental conditions and if a policy is particularly targeted at a country.

so which measure of health to use? there are no perfect measures of health and it is just important that researchers and policy makers are aware of how their choice of indicator impacts their results.

5. all in all, these discrepancies cast doubt on the reliability of mobility and cognitive self-reports, especially when comparing health across nations with differing development levels.

3. Consistency between reported and tested health is strongly correlated with the Human Development Index, with less developed countries showing higher discrepancies; 4. We do not observe persistent gender differences in consistency between reported and tested health

We find that : 1. age patterns in self-reports do not accurately reflect the deterioration of health associated with aging; 2. tested health exhibits a pronounced age gradient, whereas self- reported health varies little over the life course, particularly for self-reported memory

We use harmonized data from the Gateway to Global Aging, matching self-reported mobility and cognition with their tested equivalent to assess discrepancies at the individual level.