The relationship between measures of social desirability and various preventive health behaviors was examined directly for 235 females and 171 males from the British public and 182 females and 49 males from the University of Toronto, Canada. Both simple and partial correlations controlling for age showed that social desirability scores were related to total preventive behavior scores formed on the basis of the responses to 42 items, as well as many of the individual preventive behavior items. To ensure that this relationship was not unique to the present study, the response frequencies for 15 behavior items in this study were compared with those reported by another investigator who also used these 15 behavior items, and were found to be quite similar. Simple and partial correlations controlling for age showed that social desirability scores were significantly correlated with more of these 15 behaviors than one would expect by chance. The implications of the association of social desirability and preventive health behavior for the measurement of preventive health behavior, future research, and health education are discussed.
The National Cancer Institute since 1955 has been charged with responsibility for discovering new anti-cancer agents and bringing them to clinical trial. These activities are carried out by NCI's Developmental Therapeutics Program, which has establis...
Nitrite has been used for centuries to preserve, color, and flavor meat. Today, about 10 billion pounds of cured meat products are produced annually, accounting for some one-tenth of the American food supply. Regulators became concerned about the saf...
The long downward trend in the practice of breast feeding was reversed during the 1972-73 period. Data from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics were used to investigate the social correlates of ...
Epidemiologic studies of medically and environmentally exposed populations have been central to establishing ionizing radiation as a cause of malignant and benign thyroid tumors. Issues currently under investigation concern low dose effects, age sens...
The number of employed registered nurses (RNs) in the United States stood at an all-time high of 1.3 million in 1980. This paper, using life table techniques, develops a population base of all living graduates from data on graduations from basic nurs...
Coulehan, J L; Michaels, R H; Hallowell, C; Schults, R; Welty, T K; Kuo, J S;
Published Date:
1984 Jul-Aug
Source:
Public Health Rep. 99(4):404-409
Description:
During a 7-year period ending June 30, 1980, the annual incidence of all Haemophilus influenzae type b disease among Navajo children less than 5 years old was 214 per 100,000, and that of H. influenzae meningitis was 152 per 100,000. Eighty-one perce...
In a retrospective study, 100 randomly selected, high utilizers of ambulatory care services in 1972 were followed for a 6-year period, 1973-78. The 22 men and 78 women had visited the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage 15 or more time in 1972....
The controversy over Laetrile is nearly at an end, the worthlessness of the drug having been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. But the Laetrile experience raised important questions of public policy, some of which remain unresolved and all of whi...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has relied to a great degree on epidemiologic studies in the regulation of oral contraceptives (OC). These epidemiologic studies range from individual case reports of adverse reactions to case-control studi...
Marital status has been associated with a wide variety of health indices and health practices. To better understand the relation of marital status to use of health facilities, discharge data from two surveys conducted by the National Center for Healt...
A physician survey was conducted in 13 counties surrounding Albany and Syracuse, N.Y., to determine estrogen prescribing patterns for treatment of problems associated with menopause. A case history of a 51-year-old woman was included in questionnaire...
The control of stress and violent behavior is 1 of the 15 priority areas addressed in the Public Health Service's Objectives for the Nation. The National Institute of Mental Health, which provides a national focus for the Federal effort to increase k...
The increasing use of nonnutritive sweeteners and the widely publicized 1969 ban on cyclamate led to additional investigations in rodents of the carcinogenic potential of saccharin. Preliminary results of a long-term feeding study indicated formation...
Vernon, Sally W.; Abotchie, Peter N.; McQueen, Amy; White, Arica; Eberth, Jan M.; Coan, Sharon P.;
Published Date:
Dec 05 2011
Source:
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2011; 21(1):61-65.
Description:
BackgroundSelf-reported cancer screening behaviors are often overreported and may lead to biased estimates of prevalence and of subgroup differences in screening. We examined whether the tendency to give socially desirable responses was associated wi...
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). Association of State and Territorial Chronic Disease Program Directors (U.S.). Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (U.S.), Division of Adult and Community Health..
Published Date:
September 10, 2004
Series:
MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports ; v. 53, no. RR-11
Description:
"Chronic diseases account for seven of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States, including the three leading causes of preventable death (tobacco use, improper diet and physical inactivity, and alcohol use). Seventy percent of health-care ...
Holt, James B.; Huston, Sara L.; Heidari, Khosrow; Schwartz, Randy; Gollmar, Charles W.; Tran, Annie; Bryan, Leah; Liu, Yong; Croft, Janet B.;
Corporate Authors:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (U.S.). Division of Population Health.. Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.. National Association of Chronic Disease Directors..
Published Date:
January 9, 2015
Series:
MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports ; v. 64, no. RR-1 PMID:25578080:MODS 25578080
Description:
Chronic diseases are an important public health problem, which can result in morbidity, mortality, disability, and decreased quality of life. Chronic diseases represented seven of the top 10 causes of death in the United States in 2010 (Murphy SL, Xu...
The control of stress and violent behavior is 1 of the 15 priority areas addressed in the Public Health Service's Objectives for the Nation. The National Institute of Mental Health, which provides a national focus for the Federal effort to increase k...
Schilling, R F; el-Bassel, N; Schinke, S P; Gordon, K; Nichols, S;
Published Date:
1991 May-Jun
Source:
Public Health Rep. 106(3):297-304
Description:
Although most women infected with HIV are intravenous drug users, some contact the virus through sexual contact with IV drug users. To reach at-risk women, public health officials must develop a range of prevention strategies. One approach, skills tr...