Socioecological influencers of health-promoting lifestyles in Chinese: a preliminary survey using convenient samples
Li Huang, Hansen Li, Haowei Liu, Haodong Tian, Haoyue Luo, Jinlong Wu, Yue Luo, Li Peng, Liya Guo
Abstract
Background Healthy lifestyles are considered important means to reduce the burden of diseases. This cross-sectional study was conducted based on the Ecological Model of Health Behavior (EMHB) to analyze the factors associated with the health-promoting lifestyles of Chinese residents. Methods We carried out a cross-sectional investigation in July 2023. Our investigated factors included social-demographic characteristics (including sex, age, education level, employment status, marital status, personal monthly income, and daily behavioral habits [which were measured by a questionnaire)], health literacy [which was measured by the Chinese version of the Health Literacy Scale Short-Form scale (HLS-SF12)], and family health [which was measured by the Chinese version of the Short-Form of the Family Health Scale (FHS-SF)]. Our outcome was health promoting lifestyle, which was measured by a revised version of Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II (HPLP-IIR). Data were analyzed using stepwise regression. Results A total of 1,402 participants were enrolled. Higher scores of HLS-SF12 ( β = 0.467), having regular exercise ( β = 0.212), and regular physical examination ( β = 0.088) were associated with better health-prompting lifestyles. However, older age (≥60 years) ( β = −0.046), drinking ( β = −0.066), and sleeping time (5–6 h/day) ( β = −0.048) were associated lower levels of health-prompting lifestyles. Living with family ( β = 0.077), FHS-SF ( β = 0.104), and married ( β = −0.077) were significant influencers. Unemployed ( β = −0.048), receiving retirement pay ( β = −0.053), and economic support provided by parents ( β = 0.094) were associated with better health-prompting lifestyles. There were multiple influencing factors of the six dimensions of the HPLP-IIR. Our findings indicate that community residents with higher health literacy, better family health, and health-related behaviors tend to have better health-promoting lifestyles. Conclusion Our findings have confirmed the complex impacts of social-ecological factors on health-promoting lifestyles, which may help policy makers with health-promotion strategies making and also help researchers to control for confounding in study design.