Age Cohorts and Personal Health Behavior in Adulthood

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Abstract
Secular trends in morbidity, mortality, and risk factor prevalence highlight the importance of adopting a life-span approach to the study of health-related behaviors. To help address this question, the predictors of nine personal health practices were examined within four adult age cohorts (ages 20-64), using data from Wave 1 of the National Survey of Personal Health Practices and Consequences (N= 3,025). Analyses showed that education and gender were the most consistently important predictors of the nine practices within each cohort. Across all four cohorts, however, no predictor was statistically significant for a majority of the practices. Functional health status, income, subjective health, perceived locus of control, a regular source of health care, and group participations were of relative importance in specific cohorts. Tracking of health practices and their predictors should continue as current cohorts progress through adulthood and into older age. However, it is still an open question whether predictors of health behavior are robust longitudinally in cohorts moving through adulthood.