Health and life satisfaction

Information regarding health and life satisfaction was obtained from men and women aged 18 years and over in the 2021-22 PSS.

For self-assessed health status, respondents were asked whether in general they felt their health was: excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor.

They were then asked how satisfied they were with life as a whole, on a scale of 0 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied).

The data items and related output categories for this topic are contained within the SPS Level – Health & Disability tab in the data item list available under Downloads.

Data for this topic was collected to examine the relationship between life satisfaction and experiences of violence.

Data items from this topic should not be used on their own to produce population estimates of self-assessed health and life satisfaction.

Points to be considered when using and interpreting data for this topic include the following:

• Responses are based on the respondent’s subjective assessment of their health status and life satisfaction at the time of interview, and may not be reflective of their health status and life satisfaction at the time violence was experienced. It is recommended that these data items are used only when examining recent experiences of violence (i.e. in the previous 12- or 24- months), as personal characteristics are more likely to have changed over longer timeframes.
• Perceptions of one’s health and life satisfaction may be influenced by a number of factors, some of which may be unrelated to health or overall life satisfaction, or may reflect momentary or short-term feelings or circumstances, rather than general feelings or circumstances.

The self-assessed health status topic was first introduced in the 2012 PSS and is comparable across all subsequent PSS survey cycles.

The life satisfaction topic is comparable between the 2016 and 2021-22 PSS cycles, but not with the 2012 PSS due to a change in methodology from 2016 onwards to better align with the question used in the OECD Better Life Index.