Ming-chen Lee, BS¹, Chih-Ping Chou, PhD², Peggy E. Gallaher, PhD³, Bin Xie, MD¹, Paula H. Palmer, PhD², Ping Sun, PhD², Qian Quo, MD³, and Carl Anderson Johnson, PhD⁴. (1) Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 South Fremont Ave., Unit # 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, (2) Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Avenue, Unit 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, (3) Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, 1000 S. Fremont Ave. Box 8, Alhambra, CA 91803, 626-457-4126, pgallahe@usc.edu, (4) Preventive Medicine - Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research, University of Southern California - Keck School of Medicine, 1000 South Fremont Avenue, Unit 8, Alhambra, CA 91803

Socioeconomic disparity has been related to behavioral life styles that in turn affect health outcomes. Life style transitions as well as sweeping changes in socioeconomic status were previously reported in Mainland China. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of socioeconomic disparity on health behaviors among Chinese adolescents during the transition period. Baseline data for 14,434 adolescents in an on-going Chinese Seven City Study (CSCS) were retrieved. The CSCS is a longitudinal health promotion and smoking prevention study conducted in seven geographically varied cities. Family income and parental education attainment, perceived poverty index and relative deprivation were measured as proxies for objective and subjective socioeconomic status. Adolescent health behaviors include food consumption, exercise, TV watching, weight status, smoking and alcohol drinking behaviors. General linear models were used to examine the different patterns of health behaviors across levels of socioeconomic status. Results indicated that adolescents whose parents are more highly educated have higher dietary consumption, lower rate of smoking, less heavy drinking, higher physical activity and TV watching, and a higher rate of obesity. In addition, the results revealed that higher family income is associated with higher dietary consumption, lower rate of smoking, heavy alcohol drinking and TV watching and a higher rate of obesity. This study displays that disparity of socioeconomic profiles strongly influences adolescents~{!/~} health behaviors.

Learning Objectives:

• The audiences in this session will learn more about the effect of socioeconomic disparity on health behaviors.

Keywords: Adolescents, International, Health Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.