Measuring Health Perceptions in the Health Insurance Experiment

This report presents the results from further evaluation of the HIE general health perceptions measures. It documents how these health measures are scored in the HIE, and adds considerably to information regarding the appropriate interpretation of scores on these measures. In particular, the analyses reported and discussed focus on three sets of goals: (1) The authors wanted to examine whether the scoring rules recommended for these measures by their developers could be used in the HIE, and to evaluate the reliability and stability of scores in HIE samples. (2) They wanted to explore construction of a general health ratings index that would be simple to score, reliable, and valid in relation to a range of health status constructs. (3) Perhaps the focal point of the analyses, they wanted to further evaluate the validity of these measures. The report presents results pertaining to these three goals.