Pharmacy Daily | Social status and health

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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