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The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England

BACKGROUND: Socioeconomic status is a recognised determinant of health status, and the association may be mediated by unhealthy behaviours and psychosocial adversities, which, in developed countries, both aggregate in low socioeconomic sectors of the population. We explored the hypothesis that unhea...

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Autores principales: Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan, Yiengprugsawan, Vasoontara, Seubsman, Sam-ang, Steptoe, Andrew, Sleigh, Adrian C
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3933467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24555674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-10-10
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author Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan
Yiengprugsawan, Vasoontara
Seubsman, Sam-ang
Steptoe, Andrew
Sleigh, Adrian C
author_facet Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan
Yiengprugsawan, Vasoontara
Seubsman, Sam-ang
Steptoe, Andrew
Sleigh, Adrian C
author_sort Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Socioeconomic status is a recognised determinant of health status, and the association may be mediated by unhealthy behaviours and psychosocial adversities, which, in developed countries, both aggregate in low socioeconomic sectors of the population. We explored the hypothesis that unhealthy behavioural choices and psychological distress do not both aggregate in low socioeconomic status groups in developing countries. METHODS: Our study is based on a cross-sectional comparison between national population samples of adults in England and Thailand. Psychological distress was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) or three anxiety-oriented items from the Kessler scale (K6). Socioeconomic status was assessed on the basis of occupational status. We computed a health-behaviour score using information about smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, and physical activity. RESULTS: The final sample comprised 40,679 participants. In both countries and in both genders separately, there was a positive association between poor health-behaviour and high psychological distress, and between high psychological distress and low socioeconomic status. In contrast, the association between low socioeconomic status and poor health-behaviour was positive in both English men and women, flat in Thai men, and was negative in Thai women (likelihood ratio test P <0.001). CONCLUSION: The associations between socioeconomic status, behavioural choices, and psychological distress are different at the international level. Psychological distress may be consistently associated with low socioeconomic status, whereas poor health-behaviour is not. Future analyses will test whether psychological distress is a more consistent determinant of socioeconomic differences in health across countries.
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spelling pubmed-39334672014-02-25 The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan Yiengprugsawan, Vasoontara Seubsman, Sam-ang Steptoe, Andrew Sleigh, Adrian C Global Health Research BACKGROUND: Socioeconomic status is a recognised determinant of health status, and the association may be mediated by unhealthy behaviours and psychosocial adversities, which, in developed countries, both aggregate in low socioeconomic sectors of the population. We explored the hypothesis that unhealthy behavioural choices and psychological distress do not both aggregate in low socioeconomic status groups in developing countries. METHODS: Our study is based on a cross-sectional comparison between national population samples of adults in England and Thailand. Psychological distress was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) or three anxiety-oriented items from the Kessler scale (K6). Socioeconomic status was assessed on the basis of occupational status. We computed a health-behaviour score using information about smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, and physical activity. RESULTS: The final sample comprised 40,679 participants. In both countries and in both genders separately, there was a positive association between poor health-behaviour and high psychological distress, and between high psychological distress and low socioeconomic status. In contrast, the association between low socioeconomic status and poor health-behaviour was positive in both English men and women, flat in Thai men, and was negative in Thai women (likelihood ratio test P <0.001). CONCLUSION: The associations between socioeconomic status, behavioural choices, and psychological distress are different at the international level. Psychological distress may be consistently associated with low socioeconomic status, whereas poor health-behaviour is not. Future analyses will test whether psychological distress is a more consistent determinant of socioeconomic differences in health across countries. BioMed Central 2014-02-20 /pmc/articles/PMC3933467/ /pubmed/24555674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-10-10 Text en Copyright © 2014 Lazzarino et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
spellingShingle Research
Lazzarino, Antonio Ivan
Yiengprugsawan, Vasoontara
Seubsman, Sam-ang
Steptoe, Andrew
Sleigh, Adrian C
The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title_full The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title_fullStr The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title_full_unstemmed The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title_short The associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from Thailand and England
title_sort associations between unhealthy behaviours, mental stress, and low socio-economic status in an international comparison of representative samples from thailand and england
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3933467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24555674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-10-10
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