Hello;

I have experience with regression, I just haven't done it in a while and am SUPER confused at the moment, and thought it would be worth it to ask; its a really easy question.



I am doing a regression analysis, and some of my control variables are categorical values with values ranging from 1-4.

For example, one variable is health, where 1=excellent, 2=good, 3=fair, and 4=poor

If I were to run a regression, what value would the coefficient use as a reference?

Would I be reading it as if health is excellent, or poor? Etc?

Thanks!