Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Qual Life Res DOI 10.1007/s11136-017-1523-7 General health status in army personnel: relations with health behaviors and psychosocial variables Samuel Golenbock 1  · Josh B. Kazman 1  · Stephen Krauss 1  · Patricia A. Deuster 1   Accepted: 11 February 2017 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 and other sociodemographic characteristics had relatively small efects on general health. Military investigators and leaders who must rely on various subjective general health measures should interpret them as a combination of these factors. Keywords Comprehensive soldier and Family ftness · Emotional ftness · Military health · Sleep quality Introduction Service members face a unique combination of health risk factors when compared with their civilian counterparts: multiple and prolonged deployments, separation from fam- ily and support networks, adjustment to new physical and cultural environments, and irregular sleep–wake sched- ules [1–3]. Even the most resilient warfghters experience the toll these stressors can impose on their overall health and wellbeing. In order to measure an individual’s overall health, one approach is simply to ask him or her: “How do you consider your general health?” This type of question, often referred to as single-item self-rated health (SRH), is commonly used in population research [4–8]. The present study explored a variety of health behaviors and their asso- ciations with SRH in a large sample of Active Duty (AD) and Reserve/National Guard (RNG) army members. Background For a broad range of civilian populations, SRH has been shown to be an efective and economical way to assess total health [9–11]. Research has shown that SRH is pre- dictive of future health services utilization, disability, Abstract Purpose Poor self-rated health (SRH) is linked to an increased risk of injury, future healthcare services utili- zation, and morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to identify correlates of a single-item measure of health in 8070 US Army personnel. Methods Responses were collected from the Army’s global assessment tool (GAT) 2.0, an online question- naire that assesses physical and psychosocial health. SRH was measured by the item, “How do you consider your health?” (four response categories: “poor,” “fair,” “good,” and “excellent”). Ordinal logistic regression (OLR) was used to evaluate how various health and psychosocial fac- tors contribute to Soldiers’ ratings of SRH. Unadjusted and adjusted cumulative odds ratios (ORs) are presented and discussed. Results Most participants reported “good” health (57%), followed by “excellent” (24%), “fair” (17%), and “poor” (2%). Sleep quality (OR 2.48; 95% CI 2.34, 2.63) was the largest correlate of SRH, followed by obesity (OR 0.50; 95% CI 0.43, 0.58), emotional ftness (OR 1.68, 95% CI 1.56, 1.82), and Army physical ftness test (APFT) scores (OR 1.43; 95% CI 1.36, 1.51). Conclusions Single-item measures of self-reported health can cover a broad spectrum across physical and mental health. Among a large US Army sample, sleep quality was most strongly associated with SRH, followed by emotional ftness and APFT scores. In contrast, service-component * Samuel Golenbock samuel.golenbock.ctr@usuhs.edu 1 Department of Military and Emergency Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA