What Explains Differences in Smoking, Drinking, and Other Health-Related Behaviors?

摘要

Unhealthy behaviors are a major part of the health profile in the United States and other developed countries. A famous article by J. Michael McGinnis and William H. Foege (1993) estimated that half of all deaths in the United States are due to unhealthy behaviors, most importantly tobacco use, poor diet and exercise, and excessive alcohol consumption. Even this excludes many health-harming behaviors such as passing up recommended screening tests, discontinuing medication usage, and not following up on physician referrals. Why do people not do the right thing for their health? The prevailing economic paradigm for understanding these forms of behavior is that health behaviors are investments, where forgone current pleasure leads to improvements in future well-being (Michael Grossman, 1972). As such, variations in health behaviors will be explained by differences in discount rates or the value of life.