Being in the lowest wealth quintile or having no education is nevertheless a better predictor of one’s own poor health than parental poor health, but parental health matters more than family circumstances (being divorced or widowed). When accounting for individual heterogeneity, parental poor health becomes less important to explain own poor health than changes in marital status such as getting divorced or getting older. The impact of parental smoking is higher than that of several socio-demographic variables such as being in the lowest quintile of wealth or having low education.