Childhood socioeconomic circumstances have an independent effect on adult health and health-related behaviour: the risk of health problems and health damaging behaviour is higher in lower childhood socioeconomic groups. The independent effect of childhood circumstances on adult health operates for a small part through unhealthy behaviour.

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Study objective -To describe the differences in health behaviours in disparate marital status groups and to estimate the extent to which these can explain differences in health associated with marital status.Design -Baseline data of a prospective cohort study were used. Directly age standardised percentages of each marital group that engaged in each ofthe following behaviours -smoking, alcohol consumption, coffee consumption, breakfast, leisure exercise, and body mass indexwere computed. Multiple logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the health differences associated with marital status with and without control for differences in health behaviours.

The processes by which excellent health is generated probably have much in common with those which generate ill-health. At the same time it is obvious that our understanding of the determinants of ill-health is better than that of the determinants of excellent health, and further study of the latter is recommended.

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