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영어

Objectives: Few studies have examined the relationship between household type and persistent health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore the correlates of persistent negative health behaviors, especially focused on adult households. Methods: The data on 6,954 participants aged over 20 years and under 65 years from 2010 to 2013 who participated in the Korea Health Panel (version 1.2.2) were used for the analyses. The respondents’ socioeconomic characteristics (marital status, educational attainment, family income, and occupation) were collected in the baseline year (2010). Data on household type, health status, and practicing negative health behaviors (less physical activity, smoking, binge drinking, and harmful drinking) were gathered in each year. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations between the one-person households for four years and persistent negative actions for four years. Results: There were 174 people (2.5% of all participants) who formed one-person households for four years from 2010 to 2013. Regarding adherence to harmful activities over four years, 2,333 (33.5%), 1,362 (19.6%), 1,288 (18.5%), and 108 (1.6%) of the research population showed persistent engagement in low physical activity, smoking, binge, and harmful drinking, respectively. The multivariate logistic analyses demonstrated that one-person households were significant risk factors for persistent smoking (p<0.1), binge (p<0.01), and harmful drinking (p<0.05). Age and gender seemed to be significantly related with persistently negative health activities. In addition, being male, having higher family income and, education, and having chronic diseases seemed to be associated with a lower likelihood of low physical activity and four-year smoking. People with occupations were found to have a higher rate of continuous smoking and binge than people who did not. However, harmful drinking was found not to be significantly influenced by educational attainment, family income, and health status. Conclusion: This study adds to the current literature on the correlation between one-person households and health behaviors. Various demographic and socioeconomic factors were shown to be associated with maintaining negative health behaviors. Based on these findings, the implications and limitations of the study were presented and scope for future research was suggested.