Effect of Perceived Health Status on Circulatory disease Deaths in 23 OECD nations in 2020

Circulatory diseases are leading causes of death.Poor self-perceived health is associated with cardiovascular mortality.Bad health status reflects national mortality levels, whereas good health reflects survival.We examined variability in circulatory disease mortality relative to perceived health status across 23 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations, specifically whether increases in perceived poor health are associated with higher circulatory disease mortality.Using Pearson's correlation and simple regression analyses, we analyzed perceived health status (good, fair, bad) in relation to 12 causes of death from the 2020 OECD health data.Circulatory disease deaths were defined as deaths attributed to circulatory causes.Deaths were correlated with bad (.63), fair (.54), and good (-.61) perceived health statuses.Guided by the assumption that populationlevel health characteristics are interrelated and that poor health status is consequential to mortality, we found positive correlations for bad and fair health.We concluded that simple regression analysis was more appropriate for examining the effect of each perceived health category on circulatory disease mortality, because the three perceived health categories constituted compositional data that summed to 100%.Simple regression showed linear significance: increases in bad and fair health were associated with increases in circulatory deaths (slopes: 36.53 and 12.64), whereas higher good health was associated with decreases in circulatory deaths (slope: -10.74) in these 23 nations.Thus, shifts in perceived health status can reflect national patterns of circulatory mortality, underscoring the value of identifying variables that reflect and respond to population health changes.