AHRQ: Health Services Dissertation Research: 'Race/Ethnic and Sex Disparities in Physical Activity' Final rept. (Sept. 15, 2003-Mar. 14, 2005)

摘要

The author examined whether and, if so, how social, cultural, and economic factors are related to various health behaviors, including physical activity, smoking, binge drinking, flu shots, cancer screening behaviors, and blood cholesterol tests. In doing so, he developed a theoretical framework for understanding the production of health, and conducted several empirical studies. Although there are well known health disparities by socioeconomic status, household structure, racial and ethnic background, sex, and age, we have less insight into how those factors account for the ability or propensity of people to undertake more or less healthy behaviors. He uses data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative panel data set that includes adults aged 51 and older in the US. He models changes in health behaviors across two waves, with linear, logistic, or negative binomial regression models. Four major findings result from this work. First, diverse indicators of socioeconomic status have independent relationships with the health behaviors. Second, individuals who undertake healthy activities tend to increase their levels of other healthy behaviors over time. But, those who have unhealthy behaviors tend to decrease their levels of other healthy behaviors over time. Third, people tend to behave more like their married or cohabiting partners over time; those whose partners have healthier activities shift toward healthier activities themselves, although those whose partners participate in unhealthy activities shift toward less healthy behaviors over time. Finally, the time spent in the labor force is inconsistently associated with health behaviors.