TY - JOUR
T1 - The influence of parents' and partner's education on own health behaviours
AU - Chen, Gang
AU - Olsen, Jan Abel
AU - Lamu, Admassu N.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was part of the Tracing causes of inequalities in health and wellbeing project funded by the Research Council of Norway , grant 273812 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors
PY - 2024/2
Y1 - 2024/2
N2 - The link between educational attainment and multiple health behaviours has been explained in various ways. This paper provides new insights into the social patterning in health behaviours by investigating the influence of parents' and partners' educational attainments on a composite indicator that integrates the four commonly studied lifestyle behaviours (smoking, alcohol, physical activity and BMI). Two key outcome indicators of interests were created to reflect both ends of the “healthy – unhealthy spectrum”. Data was drawn from The Tromsø Study, conducted in 2015/16 (N = 21,083, aged 40–93 years). We controlled for two indicators of early life human capital and one personality trait variable. Partners' education attainments are relatively more important for avoiding unhealthy behaviour than choosing healthy behaviour; on the contrary, parents' education is more important for healthy behaviour. Heterogeneity by sex and age was also evident. The influences of partner's education on widening the socioeconomic contrasts in health behaviours were much stronger in the younger (40–59 years) age group. In conclusion, our results support the hypothesis that own health behaviour is affected by the educational attainments of our ‘nearest and dearest’ (i.e. spouse, mother, and father), net of own education. This study facilitates a better understanding of education-health behaviours nexus from a life course perspective and supports the importance of family-based interventions to improve healthy behaviours.
AB - The link between educational attainment and multiple health behaviours has been explained in various ways. This paper provides new insights into the social patterning in health behaviours by investigating the influence of parents' and partners' educational attainments on a composite indicator that integrates the four commonly studied lifestyle behaviours (smoking, alcohol, physical activity and BMI). Two key outcome indicators of interests were created to reflect both ends of the “healthy – unhealthy spectrum”. Data was drawn from The Tromsø Study, conducted in 2015/16 (N = 21,083, aged 40–93 years). We controlled for two indicators of early life human capital and one personality trait variable. Partners' education attainments are relatively more important for avoiding unhealthy behaviour than choosing healthy behaviour; on the contrary, parents' education is more important for healthy behaviour. Heterogeneity by sex and age was also evident. The influences of partner's education on widening the socioeconomic contrasts in health behaviours were much stronger in the younger (40–59 years) age group. In conclusion, our results support the hypothesis that own health behaviour is affected by the educational attainments of our ‘nearest and dearest’ (i.e. spouse, mother, and father), net of own education. This study facilitates a better understanding of education-health behaviours nexus from a life course perspective and supports the importance of family-based interventions to improve healthy behaviours.
KW - Health behaviours
KW - Healthy lifestyle index
KW - Norway
KW - Parents' education
KW - Spousal education
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182785346&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116581
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116581
M3 - Article
C2 - 38242029
AN - SCOPUS:85182785346
SN - 0277-9536
VL - 343
JO - Social Science & Medicine
JF - Social Science & Medicine
M1 - 116581
ER -