This study investigated students' risk perceptions with respect to personal hygiene behaviours (PHBs) from a sociocultural perspective along three dimensions: oral intake, physical contact, and preventative. A framework for an ecological system incorporates personal-social-cultural schemata shaping one's PHBs was proposed. A questionnaire survey and interview were administrated to 113 Taiwanese undergraduates who rated their risk concerns regarding 22 PHBs items; interviews were also conducted post-questionnaire to solicit opinions regarding item responses. A descriptive analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and post hoc comparison were performed for quantitative data analysis while qualitative data quoting students' elaboration on their responses were presented. This study reached three main conclusions. First, there is a significant difference between the risk perception scores of oral intake PHBs compared to physical contact PHBs. Second, the risk perception scores between this study and the American survey differ significantly. Furthermore, 13 of the items are considered to be socioculturally-embedded PHBs, differing substantially between the two study populations. Therefore, this study suggests that, in order to promote health policy and education, biology, society and culture levels need to be considered.

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The purpose of the study was to reveal participants' health concepts via a cross-sectional survey examining students at different educational stages. Four dimensions of health are integrated within an overall health concept, as drawn from relevant literature: the physical, mental, social, and cultural dimensions. An open questionnaire was administered to 551 students in three educational stages in Taiwan: junior high (13 AE 0.6yrs), senior high (16 AE 0.6yrs), and college (19 AE 0.6yrs). The results indicated that the total participants' major health concerns were situated within the physical dimension, followed by the social and mental dimensions. No participants mentioned a cultural dimension of health. Senior high school students were relatively more concerned with the mental rather than the physical dimension when compared to responses from the other two stages. Moreover, a gender difference was found in that female participants were more concerned with physical aspects while male participants focused more on the social dimension. Different concerns were obvious across the three educational stages; accordingly, an educational approach was suggested to address these findings.