Relations between health indicators representative of levels and styles of living and social attitude at the prefectural level

Abstract

This is one of the series of studies examing the assumption that levels and styles of living (LSL) consist of several interrelated components, i.e., economic, social-cultural, health and social psychological ones. My previous study had revealed that death rate caused by vascular disease and infant mortality rate were representative of the aspect of urbanization of LSL in 1965 and PMI and death rate caused by malignant neoplasm, that of gerontolization. In the present study, these indices were correlated at the prefectural level with res ponse rates on the 79 social attitude survey items by NHK Public Opinion Research Institute in 1978. In spite of a time lag of 13 years, those representative health indicators were highly correlated with social attitude at the prefectural level : The more prefectures were urban ized, the less were people living there conservative and local-minded, and the more gerontolized, the stronger was emphasis of blood relations and traditional-stable life behavior orientations.