We compared prevalence estimates of self-rated health (SRH) derived indirectly using four different small area estimation methods for the Vadu (small) area from the national Study on Global AGEing (SAGE) survey with estimates derived directly from the Vadu SAGE survey. The indirect synthetic estimate for Vadu was 24% whereas the model based estimates were 45.6% and 45.7% with smaller prediction errors and comparable to the direct survey estimate of 50%. The model based techniques were better suited to estimate the prevalence of SRH than the indirect synthetic method. We conclude that a simplified mixed effects regression model can produce valid small area estimates of SRH.