Gender, race, year in school and five co-occurring health related behaviors of Colorado State University students

Abstract

The incidence of premature morbidity and mortality reduces when individuals practice protective health related behaviors (HRBs) such as not smoking cigarettes or marijuana, limiting alcohol consumption, participating in regular physical activity, and consuming five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Research indicates that many college students do not practice multiple protective HRBs, yet most educational interventions are aimed at changing only one HRB. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate college student's co-occurring risk and protective health behaviors in order to provide insight to health educators regarding what HRBs to include in multiple health behavior change (MHBC) interventions and how to tailor and target the interventions based on race, gender, and year in school. This study assessed Colorado State University (CSU) students' pairs and clustering HRBs by gender, race, and year in school via an analysis of a pre-collected National College Health Assessment (NCHA). The final sample consisted of 928 undergraduate students aged 18-23 years old who were enrolled in one of eight class sections of an elective Health and Wellness class in the spring 2009 semester, who attended class the day the NCHA was administered, and who volunteered to participate. The sample was not representative of the total CSU population when considering major of study, year in school and age, but was representative by gender and race. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design was used to explore the relationship between co-occurring HRBs and gender, race, and year in school of students at one point in time. Descriptive statistics revealed that 39% of the students practiced at least three of five risk HRBs. Cluster analysis showed 27 patterns of risk and protective HRBs with 63% of students in five clusters. Regression demonstrated that more females than males were likely to be in three of the five HRB clusters, and upperclassman were less likely to be in two of the five clusters. Phi statistical test showed a significant association between five of the ten HRB pair combinations, and regression demonstrated that more females than males practiced one risk pair and males more than females practiced three risk pairs. The study helps improve the understanding of how health behaviors co-occur in college students and provides college administrators and health educators insights into the behaviors to include in MHBC interventions, how to prioritize interventions, which students to target and how to tailor the interventions. Findings from the study will help plan interventions aimed at preventing clusters and pairs of risk HRBs in college students, which may potentially be more effective, more economical and less demanding for health educators than interventions targeted to single HRBs.