The Relationship between Community Residents’ Views of Health and Their Lifestyle

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to clarify the relationship between the views of community residents on health and their lifestyle.

Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted on 3,510 people selected by stratified random sampling from community residents aged 20 to 64 in Town B. We prepared question items using Shimanouchi（2007）and other earlier studies for the health criteria, and the HLC Scale on Health and another scale for the views of health. The χ² test evaluated the relationship between age groups and both health criteria and lifestyle, and one-way analysis of variance assessed the relationship between age groups and views of health. A logistic regression analysis was conducted on views of health that influence lifestyle.

Results: Data of 843 valid responses were analyzed. The valid return-rate stood at 24.0 percent. Most respondents considered “being mentally/physically sound” as their judgement standard of being in good health. On the HLC scale, residents in their 30s marked the lowest scores. On the Prioritizing Health Behavior over Living Activities scale, there was a strong tendency for residents in their 60s to prioritize health behavior. We found that the health view affecting lifestyle the most was the priority of health behavior. Those with higher priority had about 1.6 times as many good groups of lifestyle as bad ones.

Discussion: Since a gap was found in health views and lifestyle by age groups, it is important to grasp the individual lifestyles of the residents and to support them according to their characteristics by age.