Do personal characteristics affect the Rasch measures of perceived physical risk? A quantile regression approach.

This paper focuses on the measurement of the perception ofhealthy risk according to personal characteristics. The Physical Risk AssessmentInventory was adopted as measurement tool and it was administeredto 551 students enrolled in the first and in the fifth classes of some highschools of Palermo. The analysis of the determinants of the perceived risk isbased on its quantitative measures. Therefore the analysis has been developedinto two tracks. First track is devoted to obtain a quantitative measure ofthe perceived risk: an Extended Logistic Rasch Model was used consideringseparately males and females. Results highlight the different perception ofrisk between males and females, although the order of risky activities is thesame for the two of them. Second track investigates the determinants of theRasch person measures: a Quantile Regression was adopted to overcome thenon-normality of the measures distribution. Results show that males pay lessattention to their own health than females do, and that difference increaseswhen the quantiles of the person measures increase. Same remarks hold forfifth year students with respect to first year ones.