Content №3 от 2024
Health-Promoting Behaviors Across Regions Differing in Quality of Life
The research objective is to reveal the relationship between the quality of life in regions and the health-promoting behaviors of their populations. To achieve this, we have analyzed behavioral attitudes and the characteristics of potential choices related to health, examining the balance between the desire to be healthy and the specific actions taken to improve and maintain health across various groups of regions. This dimension of research highlights the resource mechanisms that facilitate health-promoting and longer lifespans, depending on regional conditions and quality of life.
The study groups Russian regions based on their quality-of-life rankings. The empirical data is sourced from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE). The main method for testing the hypotheses involves checking statistically significant differences among respondents from different regional groups. Both objective indicators and subjective assessments of health status show higher levels in regions with high and relatively high quality of life.
Analysis of health-promoting behaviors reveals that populations in regions with high and relatively high quality of life more frequently visit doctors and participate in preventive medical examinations. Men show less responsibility toward health-promoting matters than women, often postponing doctor visits and medical check-ups. The level of physical activity of any intensity is also higher among residents of regions with a high quality of life, and vice versa. In contrast, regions with relatively low quality of life exhibit a passive model of health-promoting behavior. An increase in the share of men choosing health-promoting strategies has a much stronger impact on life expectancy at birth. Addressing the issue of low male life expectancy in Russia involves popularizing healthy lifestyles, developing accessible infrastructure, and improving the organization of sports, physical culture, and preventive medical examinations.
