Can a Single General Self-Rated Health Question Mirror Social Determinant of Health?

Background: self-rated health (srh) indicator is widely used and recommended in health research as a stand-ard indicator for measuring health in different populations. this paper reports srh of employees at tehran university of medical sciences (tums), tehran, iran; and its related factors. methods: we used the tums employee's cohort study (tec) data, collected from september 2017 to august 2019. srh of 2158 employees were assessed using a single question. univariate and multivariate logistic regres-sion were performed to determine factors associated with sub-optimal srh. results: overall, 14.9% (n = 321) of respondents rated their health as sub-optimal. differences were observed with subgroups. women, lower socioeconomic status (ses), experiences of more economic fluctuation condi-tions and lower reading scores could predict sub-optimal srh variations in crude and adjusted regression anal-yses. the age, social capital, work experience and employment status could predict sub-optimal srh variations only in crude regression analyses (p<0.05). conclusion: differences in srh report reflected differences in socioeconomic conditions. the biggest gap was observed between people of different ses (five times). considering that srh reflected socioeconomic charac-teristics of individuals, it may be considered as a quick, non-expensive, and simple way of identifying groups in need of addressing their social determinants of health.