• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.382-395
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to examine how area characteristics influence the health of a population in a particular area by investigating how area deprivation and social capital influence self-rated health. For this study, a multi-level logistic regression was employed to analyze the data collected by Community Health Survey conducted on a target population of 229,186 living at 253 administrative areas of Korea in 2011. First, an analysis was conducted for subjects who have rated their self-health assessment as 'fair', 'poor', and 'very poor' in a 5 -item response survey. Then, a second analysis was conducted for the same subjects by excluding those with a rating of 'fair'. As a result, we found that area deprivation significantly influenced the population's health, according to our second analysis, while it was not significant according to our first analysis. Moreover, social capital was not significant in both analyses. Area deprivation-although the value of it was not so high-seems to explain the differences of individual self-rated health assessment as a contextual effect. In addition, influence of area characteristics is not limited to certain local areas, but to all local areas of Korea. Therefore, it is suggested that efforts to improve area characteristics are necessary to upgrade the individual's health level. A standardized classification system-distinguishing between good and poor self-rated health-is necessary through further comparative studies on self-rated health assessment.