Changes in Healthy Life Expectancy and the Correlates of Self-rated Health in Bangladesh between 1996 and 2002

This study attempts to answer several questions: has self-rated health (SRH) improved in Bangladesh; are life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE) increasing in the same direction, and how much are the relative increases; and how can HLE be improved? We used data from the World Values Survey (WVS). The results show that perceived health improved between 1996 and 2002. For males, statistically significant increases in the expected number of years lived in good SRH were found, though life expectancy showed a decrease of about 3 to 6 months. Comparatively, males expected fewer life years spent in good health but a much larger proportion of expected life in good health than females. This was true only in 2002, however. Different states of health were also found to be associated with socio-demographic differences. Finally and most strikingly, in multivariate analyses, life satisfaction was the only factor found to have a significant positive and growing impact on SRH for males and females in both years, although in both years the impact was much more pronounced for females than for males. This demonstrates that individuals with life satisfaction are more likely to have good SRH. Therefore, greater emphasis should be placed on life satisfaction when efforts are made to improve SRH and HLE in Bangladesh.