Lone mothers: their health and lifestyle

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The number of families headed by lone mothers in Great Britain is increasing and many of these women and their children live in situations of socio-economic disadvantage. Much published work on this issue has concentrated on the health of children of lone parents. The recent interest in health and lifestyle surveys provides an opportunity to assess self- perceived health and lifestyle factors among lone mothers. This paper presents the results of such a survey in the Trent Region in 1992. The major findings are that lone mothers in this survey suffered more socio-economic disadvantage, were younger and had a higher prevalence of smoking than mothers living with partners. They perceived themselves to be less happy, more likely to be stressed by relationships, housing, money problems and sexual harassment. They also perceived themselves to have less access to practical and emotional support and felt that their health would be improved by employment, more money and a less stressful life. Such data may be useful at a local level for developing policies on health promotion and for lobbying members of healthy alliances to develop policies on housing and childcare which do not further disadvan tage such women and their children.