Heterogeneities in the production of health: smoking, health status and place

Is it Time to Quit? Smoking Persistence and Self-Rated Health

This study evaluates the impact of smoking on self-rated health using a British cohort born in 1970 that was followed through adult life. Records were taken for this dataset many times; individual self-rated health was first recorded in 1996 at age 26, and afterward at ages 30, 34, and 42. The smoking rate over time determined membership in the groups of current-smokers, never-smokers, and former-smokers. Estimates showed that the current-smokers group produced an increase in the probability of being in poor health with respect to never-smokers of about 10 percentage points in the long term. This result was also consistent when we used former-smokers as the control group, or other model specifications. The baseline estimates were not contradicted by robustness checks and policy implications of these results were discussed.

Relation between overweight/obesity and self-rated health among adolescents in Germany. Do socio-economic status and type of school have an impact on that relation?

This study investigates the relation between overweight/obesity and self-rated health (SRH), and whether this relation varies by social factors. Data was taken from the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS, baseline 2003‒2006). For the definition of overweight and obesity, body mass index was calculated based on standardized height and weight measurements. SRH of adolescents (n = 6813, 11‒17 years) was raised with the question: “How would you describe your health in general?” The response categories were “very good”, “good”, “fair”, “poor”, and “very poor”. We dichotomized these responses into: “very good/good” vs. “fair/poor/very poor”. Socio-economic status (SES) in the family of origin and adolescents’ school type were analyzed as modifying factors. Prevalence and age-adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated by binary logistic regression models. We found that overweight and obese boys and obese girls reported fair to very poor SRH more often than their normal weight peers, and that these differences were more apparent in early than late adolescence. In addition, the relation between obesity and SRH was similarly strong in all sub-groups, but there was seldom a relation between overweight and SRH. In summary, the results show that obesity is linked to poor SRH regardless of SES and school type, while the relation between overweight and SRH varies by social factors among adolescents.

Socioeconomic status and body mass index in Canada: exploring measures and mechanisms

We examine the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES), sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle behaviors (fruit and vegetable intake, exercise, smoking, and alcohol consumption), and body mass index (BMI) using the Canadian Community Health Survey 2.1. We explore two different measures of SES, education and income, to elucidate material and cultural explanations of the SES-BMI relationship. Results vary significantly by gender, highlighting the complexity of the relationship between SES, sociodemographic and lifestyle factors, and BMI. We suggest that body weight is still a gendered status symbol, and that cultural and psychosocial factors may be more important than material factors in perpetuating this health inequality.