Health Disparities

Engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviors improves health and longevity. Conversely, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, such as poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking, poor sleep, and alcohol intake, contribute to poor health, increased morbidity, and mortality. Disparities in health-promoting behaviors exist by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and region (Saint Onge & Krueger, 2017). Based on national US data, persons who are Black and Hispanic are less likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors (high levels of physical activity, healthy diet, adequate sleep, low levels of heavy drinking, and smoking) compared to persons who are White (Saint Onge & Krueger, 2017; Morris et al., 2018). Similarly, persons who live in the Western part of the US are more likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors than persons in the South, and persons who are in midlife are more likely to engage in healthier behaviors than persons who are younger or older (Saint Onge & Krueger, 2017). Men are also less likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors compared to women (Morris et al., 2018; Saint Onge & Krueger, 2017).

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