Health Lifestyles in the United States and Canada: Are We Really So Different?^*

Abstract

Objective Some research suggests that social, political, and cultural life in the U.S. and Canada are growing divergent. We use health lifestyle theories to extend prior research and compare the U.S. and Canada on population health indicators. Methods The population health indicators include health behaviors, fertility, and cause-specific mortality for each of the United States (and Washington D.C.), and Canadian Provinces and Territories (N=64). Results Canada and the U.S. are significantly different on many health lifestyle variables. But, levels of the health lifestyle variables converge at the U.S./Canada border, and some U.S. States and Canadian Provinces or Territories exhibit similar health lifestyle patterns, regardless of whether they share an international border (these are mapped in the paper). Conclusions Although Canada and the U.S. differ on major population health indicators, some States, Provinces, and Territories exhibit marked similarities. Our paper concludes with a discussion about how our comparative perspective might inform population health policies.

Family, Peer, and School Influences on Children’s Developing Health Lifestyles

“…Many health researchers have used latent class analyses, which inductively identify empirical clusters of health behaviors within individuals and can be used to model correlates and consequences of these patterns (see McAloney et al 2013 for a discussion). Some researchers have considered multiple health behaviors without an explicit health lifestyles approach (Leventhal, Huh and Dunton 2014, Mistry et al 2009, Patnode et al 2011, Skalamera and Hummer 2016), while others have used a health lifestyles framework (De Vries et al 2008, Krueger, Bhaloo and Rosenau 2009 Mize 2017). Nearly all have focused on adults.…”

Health Lifestyles in Early Childhood

“…In Weber’s conceptualization, lifestyles are not associated with individuals, but with status groups of people with similar backgrounds (Cockerham 2005), and choosing the lifestyle associated with a status group communicates one’s group identity. Some research has expanded the definition of health lifestyles to include factors such as understandings of what good health means, norms about health, and policy environments (Krueger, Bhaloo and Rosenau 2009). Individuals’ approaches towards health behaviors tend to cluster, with people who behave in one healthy or unhealthy way often behaving in others (Laaksonen, Prättälä and Lahelma 2002).…”

Uncalculated First‐Party Externalities Given a Beverage Tax

“…Individuals ages 20–39 are not more or less likely to be obese (30.3 percent obese) than adults on average (34.9 percent; Ogden et al., ). Two hundred twenty‐seven undergraduate students enrolled at one of three universities in Nebraska, Oklahoma, or California voluntarily participated in this study, as prior research finds different U.S. regions maintaining different lifestyles in terms of (un)healthy behaviors (e.g., Krueger, Bhaloo, and Rosenau, ). Students were incentivized with extra credit equivalent to 1 percent of total course points, but could instead complete a comparable assignment for the same incentive.…”