УДК 614.2:303.425:316.64:304.3:616-056.8-053.8(574)
Z.E. Battakova, S.B. Mukasheva, A.A. Adayeva, S.Z. Abdrakhmanova, A.A. Akimbaeva
National Centre for Problems of Healthy Lifestyle Development, Almaty с., Kazakhstan
LINK BETWEEN SUBJECTIVE HEALTH ASSESSMENT
AND HEALTH-SAVING BEHAVIOR IN MIDDLE-AGED ADULTS
Individuals’ perceptions of their health are an important source of complex social, medical, and sociological information. Subjective health assessment has informative value only when we consider self-evaluation as a behavioral determinant of factors contributing to health protection and promotion, and the most important means of prevention involve lifestyle and behavioral risk factors. This article explores the characteristics of men and women aged 30–49 years with different subjective health assessment results, according to lifestyle and risk factors.
Study design. Descriptive, cross-sectional, multicluster study. The objective of the study is to analyze correlation between subjective health assessment and lifestyle and health risk factors in men and women aged 30–49 years.
Material and methods. Data for men and women aged 30–49 years, obtained from the sixth national health behavior sociological survey, conducted in the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2015, were used in this study.
Result and discussions. Men. The proportion of obese men who evaluated their health as “good” (6.3%) was significantly lower than that of those who evaluated their health as “satisfactory”(11.1%). The proportions of men with “satisfactory” health who used tobacco (49.6%) and consumed alcohol (53.0%) were significantly higher than those of men with “good” health (39.6% and 39.4%, respectively). The proportions of men with “good” health who engaged in regular exercise (55.6%) and mobile sports (49.7%) were almost twice those observed in men with “satisfactory” health (30.2% and 26.4%, respectively).
Women. The proportion of obese women with “satisfactory” health (14.2%) was significantly higher than that of those with “good” health (9.0%). The proportion of women with “good” health who consumed alcohol (23.7%) was significantly lower than that of those with “satisfactory” health (32.2%). The proportions of women with “good“ health who engaged in regular exercise(53.2%) and mobile sports (44.7%) were significantly higher than those of women with “satisfactory” health (29.9% and 25.5%, respectively).
Conclusion. These data suggest that self-reported health is an important indicator of health and provides an objective view of individuals’ health-saving behavior.
Key words: health, self assessment, behavior, risk factors, overweight, obesity, physical activity.