Health, lifestyle and health care utilization among health professionals

Paul A. Bourne, Lilleth V. Glen, Hazel Laws, Maureen D. Kerr-Campbell
DOI: 10.4236/health.2010.26083                

Abstract

Health care workers are responsible for the execution of the health policy of a nation, yet little if any empirical evidence is there on health, lifestyle, health choices, and health conditions of health care workers in the rural parish of Hanover, Jamaica. The current study examines health, lifestyle and health behaviour among health professional in Hanover. The current study has a sample of 212 respondents. A 26- item questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data from the questionnaires were coded and entered into a micro-computer and analysis done using SPSS for Widows Version 15.0 soft- ware. The Chi-square test was used to test association between non-metric variables. A p-value < 0.05 (two-tailed) was selected to indicate statistical significance. It was found that 16.0% of respondents had diabetes mellitus (2.8% of males compared to 19.8% females); 22.6% had hypertension (25.5% of female and 12.8% of males); 0.5% breast cancer; 0.5% stomach cancer; 1.9% enlarged heart; and 0.5% ischemic heart disease. Forty-three percentage points of the sample was overweight, 33.5% obese and 24.1% had a normal weight. Over 15% of nurses and doctors were obese compared to 38% of ancillary staffers. Twenty percentage points of respondents consume alcohol on a regular basis; 15.6% do no regular physical exercise, 42.4% add sweetening to their hot beverages, and 4.7% were smokers. There is a need for public health practitioners to formulate a health intervention programme that will target people in Hanover, but also specific groups such as doctors, nurses, administrative, ancillary staffers and technical staffers.

Keywords

Health Care Workers; Health; Lifestyle; Health Choices; Health Behaviour; Hanover; Jamaica

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Sen, A. (1979) Poverty: An ordinal approach to measurement. Econometricia, 44(2), 219-231.
[2]	World Health Organization (2005) Preventing chronic diseases a vital investment. Geneva.
[3]	Emerson, E. (2009) Relative child poverty, income inequality, wealth, and health. Journal of the American Medical Association, 301(4), 425-426.
[4]	Mitra, A. and Tsujita, Y. (2009) Health-Poverty nexus: A study of low income households in India. International Journal of Child and Adolescent Health, 2(1), 99-107.
[5]	Bourne, P.A. (2009) Impact of poverty, not seeking medical care, unemployment, inflation, self-reported illness, health insurance on mortality in Jamaica. North American Journal of Medical Sciences, 1(3), 99-109.
[6]	Levy, H. (1996) They cry ‘Respect’: Urban violence and poverty in Jamaica. The Centre for Population, Community and Social Change, University of the West Indies, Kingston.
[7]	Planning Institute of Jamaica and Statistical Institute of Jamaica (2007) Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions. Kingston.
[8]	Statistical Institute of Jamaica (2008) Demographic statistics, 2001, 2007. Kingston.
[9]	Ministry of Health (2005-2008) Annual Report, 2004- 2007. Policy, Planning and Development Division, Kingston.
[10]	Ward, E. and Grant, A. (2005) Epidemiological prolife of selected health conditions and services in Jamaica, 1990- 2002. Health Promotion and Protection Division, Ministry of Health, Kingston.
[11]	Pan American Health Organization (2007) Health in the Americas. Countries, 2, Washington DC.
[12]	Ataman, S.L., Cooper, R., Rotimi, C., McGee, D., Osotimehin, B., Kadiri, S., Kingue, S., Muna, W., Fraser, H., Forrester, T. and Wilks, R. (1996) Standardization of blood pressure measurement in a international comparative study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 49(8), 869- 877.
[13]	Wilks, R., Younger, N., Mullings, J., Zohoori, N., Figueroa, P., Tulloch-Reid, M., Ferguson, T., Walters, C., Bennett, F., Forrester, T., Ward, E. and Ashley, D. (2007) Factors affecting study efficiency and item non-response in health surveys in developing countries: The Jamaica national healthy lifestyle survey. BMC Med Research Methodology, 7(13), 1-14.
[14]	Kish, L. (1949) A procedure for objective respondents selection within the household. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 44, 380-387.
[15]	List, J. (2006) Illness, poverty and the invisible patient. American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, Virtual Mentor, 8(11), 705-708.
[16]	Link, B.G. and Phelan, J.C. (1995) Social conditions as fundamental cause of disease. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36(Special Issue), 80-94.
[17]	Foster, A. (1994) Poverty and illness in low-income rural areas. American Economic Review, 84(2), 216-220.
[18]	O’Connell, J.E. and Gray, C.S. (1994) Treating hypertension after stroke. British Medical Journal, 308(6943), 1523-1524.
[19]	Woo, D., Haverbusch, M., Sekar, P., Kissela, B., Khoury, J., Schneider, A., Kleindorfer, D., Szaflarski, J., Pancioli, A., Jauch, E., Moomaw, C., Sauerbeck, L., Gebel, J. and Broderick J. (2004) Effect of untreated hypertension on hemorrhagic stroke. Stroke, 35(7), 1703-1708.
[20]	World Health Organization (2003) Obesity and overweight. Geneva. http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publica tions/facts/obesity/en/.
[21]	Ministry of Health (2004) National policy for the promotion of healthy lifestyle in Jamaica. Health Promotion and Protection Division, Kingston.
[22]	Morrison, E. (2000) Diabetes and hypertension: Twin trouble. Cajanus, 33(2), 61-63.
[23]	Callender, J. (2000) Lifestyle management in the hypertensive diabetic. Cajanus, 33(2), 67-70.