Study design <p>Cross-sectional study</p> Objective <p>To evaluate alternative scoring approaches for the modified Spinal Cord Injury Secondary Conditions Scale (SCI-SCS) using severity- and mortality-based weights, and to examine their associations with functioning and self-reported health in individuals with SCI.</p> Setting <p>Community</p> Methods <p>We analyzed data from 10,347 participants in the International Spinal Cord Injury Survey (InSCI). Eight scoring approaches were constructed from 14 secondary health conditions and a depression item, varying by severity coding and by whether mortality weights were applied equally or condition-specifically. Associations with functioning (ICF-based composite score) and self-reported health were assessed using Pearson and Spearman correlations, with additional country-level analyses to explore variability.</p> Results <p>All scoring approaches were negatively correlated with both outcomes, indicating that higher secondary health condition burden was associated with worse functioning and poorer health. The score combining the modified SCI-SCS with condition-specific mortality weights showed the highest correlations, though differences from the unweighted score were small. Both scores demonstrated moderate associations with the outcomes. Country-level analyses revealed variability, partly related to sample size, but overall patterns were consistent.</p> Conclusion <p>The modified SCI-SCS demonstrated moderate and robust associations with functioning and self-reported health, supporting its use as a pragmatic proxy of overall health status in individuals with SCI. Weighting by mortality risks yielded only marginal gains, suggesting that the unweighted score remains a suitable option for research and practice. These findings advance the use of self-reported measures to capture health burden in SCI and encourage further validation with independent outcomes and across diverse contexts.</p>