Social status and health
August 28, 2012
AUSTRALIANS from the lowest
income households are less likely to
report having excellent or very
good health than adults from highincome
households, according to
the latest Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare.
The survey looked at social factors
(as found in the 2007-08 National
Health Survey) such as post-school
qualifications, equivalised household
income, occupation category,
remoteness, language spoken at
home, sex, and age, to investigate
the association between selected
social factors and health status.
Findings in the report included
the fact that people having a
bachelor degree or higher
qualification were less likely to
report smoking and risky alcohol
consumption than those without
this level of education; whilst
managers/professionals were less
likely to smoke but more likely to
engage in risky alcohol consumption
than people who were unemployed
or not in the labour force.
Interestingly, researchers found
that there was little significant
effect of geographical location for
any of the health status or health
risk factor variables, except for
unhealthy body weight and selfreported
health status.
People living in inner regional
areas, according to researchers,
were more likely to report excellent
or very good health status than
people living in major cities, whilst
those outside of major cities were
more likely to report unhealthy
body weight than people living in
major cities.
Meanwhile in terms of language
spoken at home, those who spoke
English had a higher prevalence of
heart, stroke and vascular diseases
and a lower prevalence of Type 2
diabetes than people who spoke
another language at home.
In addition, those who did not
speak English at home were less
likely than their English speaking
counterparts to smoke, consume
risky levels of alcohol and have an
unhealthy body weight.
Researchers found that increasing
age was the strongest predictor for
increased health risk factors.
Finally, females were found more
likely to report excellent or very
good health, and also had a lower
prevalence of cancer; heart, stroke
and vascular diseases; Type 2
diabetes; smoking; risky alcohol
consumption; and unhealthy body
weight than males.
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