| Abstract: | Among European and American countries, the health risk appraisal (HRA) is regarded as one useful tool to enhance health consciousness and to promote health behavior change. This research, based on findings of various literatures, calculates the risk scores of ten leading causes of death for those subjects of ?2001 National Health Survey, Taiwan?. (2001 NHIS). Those subjects with face-to-face interview are island-wide random samples of those 12 year old and above. Analyses are carried out to determine the relation between risk score of liver cancer, lung cancer, oral cancer, stroke, heart disease and self-perceived health status. The findings are?
?. Social-demographic characteristic and the disease risk?
1.Liver cancer?Those aged 40~64 with lower liver cancer risk score.
2.Lung cancer ?Those aged 40~64 and income group of NT$ 5,000~
9,999 with lower risk score while those with income
above NT$60,000 with higher score.
3.Oral cancer ?Christians with high oral cancer risk score.
4.Stroke ?Male with university education and those income of
NT$5,000~9,999 with higher stroke risk.
5.Heart disease?Male aged 40~64 and those of Taoism with higher
risk?nevertheless, those live in city with lower
risk.
?. The health risk and self-perceived health status?
Those perceive worse health status are higher on "lung
cancer" risk score. After controlling social-demographic
variables, those with worse self-perceived health status are
higher on "stroke" and "heart disease" risk score. After
comparing the health of one year ago, those reported worse are
lower on "oral cancer" and " stroke" risk score. After
controlling all other variables, those reported better health
than one year ago are higher on "lung cancer" risk score but
lower on scores of "oral cancer", "stroke" and "heart disease".
Prevention is much more important than treatment. We would
like to suggest health authority to take actions among young
people, those in the ?Gold guidance period?, to adopt health
behavior in order to reduce disease risks. |
