Health perception among the elderly in India: A gender perspective

There is an urgent need to understand and study the gender-based comprehensive own-perception approaches about health status. Our primary interest is to elucidate and capture whether and what determinants of gender disparity exist in own-perception about current and change in health status in Indian settings among the elderly. Therefore, we intended to examine the gender disparity in own-perception and their differences among the elderly in India. We used cross-sectional data from the 75th National Sample Survey Organizations (NSSO), collected from July 2017 to June 2018. The analytical sample constitutes 42759 cases of the elderly (eliminating two points of transgender). Thus, 21902 older men and 20857 older women have been considered. Two different measurements of own-perception about health status among the elderly have been used. We have calculated absolute gaps in the prevalence of current self-perception and change in health status by background characteristics. We carried out an ordered logistic regression model (or proportional odds model) to determine the predictors of health perception among the elderly. There is a clear gap between men and women in terms of rating poor perception about health; men generally have reported higher perception about their current health status when it comes to rating them excellent in terms of socio-economic outcomes like income, place of residence, and household structure. Despite numerous limitations, this study addressed the significant public health concern, which is crucial to address the challenge of the elderly health and their perception of well-being.