>From behan@osiris.Colorado.EDU Wed Jun 29 14:39:30 1994 Return-Path: behan@osiris.Colorado.EDU Received: from osiris.Colorado.EDU (osiris.Colorado.EDU [128.138.151.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) with ESMTP id OAA18634 for ; Wed, 29 Jun 1994 14:39:30 -0600 Received: from taweret.Colorado.EDU (taweret.Colorado.EDU [128.138.151.21]) by osiris.Colorado.EDU (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) with ESMTP id OAA18600 for ; Wed, 29 Jun 1994 14:39:24 -0600 Received: (behan@localhost) by taweret.Colorado.EDU (8.6.9/8.6.9/CNS-3.5) id OAA13111; Wed, 29 Jun 1994 14:39:22 -0600 Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 14:39:22 -0600 (MDT) From: Behan Pamela Subject: RE: lifestyle factors To: PPN List Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 28 Jun 1994, Isaac W. Eberstein wrote: > Also, it is true that lifestyle factors (like smoking, etc) are > mortality risks; to deny/ ignore that fact would relegate sociological > analysis to irrelevance. The question is how to integrate structure and > lifestyle in a manner consistent with both sociological and public health > realities. Jackie Carrigan replied: I recognize that smoking, drinking, diet, exercise, etc. can affect health and mortality, and that there is some measure of individual choice involved in these activities. However, I am interested in understanding why it is that people in certain groups tend to choose similarly. To me this indicates a possible structural influence. People of lower social class tend to engage in more health risky behaviors, and I would like to come to a better understanding of why that is. I agree that "lifestyle" similarities indicate a possible structural influence. To me, that is an argument for the salience of social class to understanding social processes in the United States. After all, most of the risk factors for health risk behaviors are the parameters defining social class - education, occupation, income, etc. "Lifestyle" similarities support the concept of class cultures, with similar norms and values among those who share similar behaviors. Pamela Behan