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PubMed2004

[Health problems and health behaviors of preschoolers].

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to understand the health status and health behaviors of preschoolers to provide baseline data for developing health promotion programs. METHOD: Parents of children attending day-care centers were recruited for the study. Participating day-care centers were selected using a stratified sampling method. Data was collected from June to August 2002 using a questionnaire. RESULT: Among 754 preschoolers, 17.3% were overweight, while 18.2% were underweight. The most frequent infectious diseases that children have had previously were hand-foot-mouth disease (20.2%) and chicken pox (18.7%). Current health conditions that children have frequently are respiratory disease (28%) and atopic dermatitis (23.8%). Only 61% brush their teeth everyday at bedtime, 54.3% wash their hands every time after returning home, 8.8% wear bicycle helmets, 9.3% use a child car seat, and 8.1% eat fruits and vegetables five times a day. Children residing in the metropolitan area were more likely to have positive health behaviors, and children of parents with an advanced college level education were more likely to have positive health behaviors than those with only a high school level education. CONCLUSION: Based on the study results, health professionals could plan and develop health promotion programs to change unhealthy behaviors of preschoolers targeting high-risk groups.

Child↗
PubMed1996

Associations between physical activity and other health behaviors in a representative sample of US adolescents.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the associations between physical activity and other health behaviors in a representative sample of US adolescents. METHODS: In the 1990 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 11631 high school students provided information on physical activity; diet; substance use; and other negative health behaviors. Logistic regression analyses examined associations between physical activity and other health behaviors in a subset of 2652 high-active and 1641 low-active students. RESULTS: Low activity was associated with cigarette smoking, marijuana use, lower fruit and vegetable consumption, greater television watching, failure to wear a seat belt, and low perception of academic performance. For consumption of fruit, television watching, and alcohol consumption, significant interactions were found with race/ethnicity or sex, suggesting that sociocultural factors may affect the relationships between physical activity and some health behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: Low physical activity was associated with several other negative health behaviors in teenagers. Future studies should examine whether interventions for increasing physical activity in youth can be effective in reducing negative health behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Preventive health services use, lifestyle health behavior risks, and self-reported health status of women in Ohio by ethnicity and completed education status.

This study assessed the health status and behavior of college-educated and non-college-educated African American women and European American women in Ohio. Analyses focused on health services utilization, health status, and life style/health behaviors from the 1998 Ohio Family Health Survey. College-educated African American women used more preventive health services and had better health status than non-college-educated African American women. Even so, college-educated African American women still had higher body mass index values, lower health status, and higher percent currently smoking than college-educated European American women. We conclude that college-educated African American women may face unique barriers to implementing all types of health-promoting behaviors available consequent to their higher education. Partnerships with respected community institutions, such as churches, may help these women develop good health practices in their entire community as well as in themselves.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Managed behavioral health services for children under carve-out contracts.

OBJECTIVE: Service costs and utilization patterns of children in carved-out behavioral health care plans were examined and compared with those of adults. METHODS: Twelve-month data on utilization and costs of behavioral health care from one managed behavioral health care carve-out organization, United Behavioral Health, were examined for three age groups of children--birth to five years, six to 12 years, and 13 to 17 years-and for adults. More than 600,000 enrollees in 108 different plans were included in the data. Rates of use and intensity of use were examined separately by type of service-inpatient, outpatient, and partial hospitalization. RESULTS: Only a small number of all enrollees used any behavioral health care services--4.2 percent used outpatient services, .3 percent used inpatient services, and .2 percent used partial hospitalization services. Adolescents were more than twice as likely as adults and about seven times as likely as children aged 6 to 12 to use inpatient services. Adolescents also had a slightly higher probability of using outpatient care than adults, while younger children had lower rates of outpatient use than adolescents or adults. Adolescents were also more likely than adults and other children to have very high costs of inpatient care (mean costs=$8,975 for adolescents and $4,750 for adults). Adults were more likely than other groups to have higher outpatient costs ($640 for adults and $513 for all children). CONCLUSIONS: The finding that children, and adolescents in particular, are more likely to have very high inpatient costs compared with adults implies that they may benefit most from the elimination of caps on mental health care costs covered by insurance. This profile of children's behavioral health care utilization patterns can be useful to policy makers in considering expansions in children's health insurance coverage.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Health consciousness and health behavior: the application of a new health consciousness scale.

Self-consciousness has been an important trait in personality research. It seems logical to investigate whether health consciousness, involving a similar self-focusing, might operate in a parallel manner. To this end, I developed the Health Consciousness Scale (HCS), primarily by modifying items of the Self-Consciousness Scale, and also tested it for reliability and validity. My study found the HCS to contain four first-order factors: (1) Health Self-Consciousness, (2) Health Alertness, (3) Health Self-Monitoring, and (4) Health Involvement. I found these four first-order factors, along with the overall HCS second-order factor, to relate to a number of self-reported, health-associated behavioral variables. The study also included comparisons with the Health Locus-of-Control Scale and other measures.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Health behavior: issues, contradictions and dilemmas.

American medicine faces many contradictions and dilemmas. This is especially the case with regard to preventive health behavior. This paper explores the effects of several issues, contradictions and dilemmas on the American experience with primary preventive health behavior. These issues include: individualism, victim blaming, therapeutic nihilism, the over abundance of health information, America as a culture of risk takers, and the dilemma of the jungle vs the zoo. Four types of health behavior are defined. The first type of health behavior is the primary prevention of disease, defect, injury or disability. The second type is detection of asymptomatic disease, injury and defect. Third, is the promotion of enhanced levels of health, wellness and quality of life. And the fourth, at a more societal level, protective behaviors to make environmental transactions safe from disease, injury, defect and disability. These four types of health behavior are each explored in relation to societal values, technology and economics to determine which of these facilitate or impede health behavior at both the individual and societal levels.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Effects of a health promotion program on sustaining health behaviors in older adults.

BACKGROUND: Controversy exists regarding the optimal way to provide health promotion education to the elderly. This prospective randomized study evaluated the effectiveness of individualized assessment and counseling coupled with the receipt of a written health plan on client adherence to health behavior recommendations. METHODS: Two hundred thirty-seven ethnically diverse and predominantly low-income adults 60 and older, participating for the first time in an established statewide public health prevention program delivered in both rural and urban clinics, were recruited and randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. All participants received a standardized assessment that included a health history, nutrition assessment, and limited physical exam from a public health nurse. The treatment group additionally received a written personal health plan and individualized counseling to support implementation of the plan. Both groups were interviewed after one year to determine their adherence to the original recommendations. RESULTS: Seventeen preventive services and health behaviors were evaluated. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups on health care use and previous health behaviors at baseline. Using logistic regression and controlling for socioeconomic and demographic variables, we found that the treatment group that received a personal health plan and counseling completed significantly more preventive referrals and health behavior changes (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: A client-centered planning process with supportive counseling by public health nurses, combined with health plans provided to clients, can significantly increase the prevention measures taken by older adults.

Aged↗
PubMed1988

Alcohol use and health behavior lifestyles among U.S. women: the behavioral risk factor surveys.

Alcohol use is a complex behavior, occurring in the context of an overall health lifestyle. We used data from a nationally representative telephone survey (N = 12,467 women) to examine associations between binge drinking, chronic drinking, and other health behaviors. Certain health-risk behaviors (e.g., smoking, drunk driving, and seatbelt nonuse) tend to cluster with alcohol misuse. These may act synergistically, thus augmenting the negative health effects of alcohol misuse. Conversely, some health behaviors (e.g., eating or exercising, particularly in response to stress) are negatively associated with alcohol misuse and may serve similar functions for some women. Finally, binge drinking occurs more frequently among women who may have relatively restrictive eating behaviors and higher levels of interpersonal stress. Our findings suggest that alcohol prevention and treatment programs should address sociodemographic and health lifestyle factors that initially predispose an individual to engage in health-risk behaviors and should recognize the interdependent patterns of behaviors associated with alcohol misuse. This approach will help prevent substitutions, recurrence, or induction of detrimental behaviors and will identify potentially negative interactions between existing concurrent health-risk behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Parent/caregiver satisfaction with their child's Medicaid plan and behavioral health providers.

The experiences of children in FFS and MC managed care plans (n = 715) were examined through satisfaction ratings by their parents/caregivers about their behavioral health provider and their Medicaid behavioral health plan. Multivariate regression analyses compared satisfaction ratings among children enrolled in FFS versus MC while controlling for other known predictors of satisfaction including child and parent/caregiver demographic characteristics, behavioral health status, and child history of behavioral health service use. Caregiver satisfaction with their children's behavioral health provider did not differ significantly between those children in managed care plans and those in fee-for-service plans. However, satisfaction ratings for Medicaid FFS plans were significantly more positive than those for Medicaid MC plans.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Ethnic identity and risky health behaviors in school-age Mexican-American children.

The study examined the relationship between ethnic identity and risky health behaviors in 1,892 Mexican-American students (M age= 14.6, SD= 1.35; 50.3% male) in South Texas. The Ethnic Identity Scale assessed ethnic identity and questions from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey measured risky health behaviors (mixed use of alcohol and drugs, heavy drinking, driving under the influence, regular marijuana use, regular cigarette smoking, lack of regular exercise, not eating breakfast regularly, and carrying a gun or knife to school). Logistic regression tested the relationships between ethnic identity and report of risky health behaviors controlling for potential confounders (sex, free school lunch status, grade, and self-reported school grade). Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) and confidence intervals were calculated. Results indicated that being associated with Mexican-American cultural identity was significantly associated with a decreased mixed use of alcohol and drugs (AOR= .97), heavy drinking (AOR= .98), and regular marijuana use (AOR= .97). A stronger ethnic identity was protective against engaging in risky health behaviors among these Mexican-American adolescents.

Acculturation↗
PubMed1996

Depressive symptoms: associations with health perceptions and health behaviors.

The association of depressive symptoms with health behaviors and perceptions was determined for 876 patients seeing family physicians. Correlational analyses revealed stress, pain, and overall health status were moderately related to depression for males and females. Smoking was positively related to depressive symptoms in women (r = .19, P < 0.01), and drinking was inversely related to depressive symptoms in men (r = -.16, P < .01). Multiple regression analyses indicated stress, poor health, smoking, and drinking were significant predictors of depressive symptoms in women; stress, poor health, and drinking were significant in men. Health perceptions appear to be better predictors of depressive symptoms than reported health behaviors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Neuroticism and depressive symptoms among spouse caregivers: do health behaviors mediate this relationship?

This study examined the mediating role of health behaviors in the relationship between neuroticism and depressive symptoms among spouse caregivers. Path analysis was used to test a model of the caregiver stress process among 233 caregivers of people with dementia. Results indicate that neuroticism has a significant direct effect on depressive symptoms and also indirectly influences depressive symptoms through health behaviors and perceived stress. When individual health behaviors were examined in the path model, only physical activity served a significant mediating role. These findings suggest that neuroticism may lead to depressive symptoms among caregivers partly through declines in physical activity.

Adult↗