Healthy lifestyle behaviour among Ghanaian adults in the phase of a health policy change

Table 3 Percentage distribution of respondents by demographic and socio-economic characteristics and healthy lifestyle behaviour (2008)

Socio-demographic and economic characteristics	Healthy lifestyle behaviour
	Females			Males
	High	Moderate	Low	High	Moderate	Low
Type of place of residence			***			***
Urban	38.4	34.1	27.6	35.7	36.0	28.3
Rural	30.1	32.7	37.2	31.5	30.6	37.9
Age group			**			**
18-19	31.9	37.7	30.4	40.5	32.2	27.3
20-29	35.5	34.2	30.4	34.5	32.8	32.7
30-39	33.9	32.1	34.1	31.9	33.9	34.2
40-49	31.4	31.5	37.1	29.5	32.0	38.5
Marital status			**			***
Never married	33.8	37.5	28.7	37.1	32.1	30.9
Currently married/cohabiting	33.5	32.5	34.1	30.9	32.9	36.2
Formerly married	35.7	29.7	34.5	30.1	40.4	29.5
Highest level of educational attainment			*			*
No formal education	33.1	31.5	35.5	38.4	28.5	33.1
Primary	33.9	30.9	35.2	32.7	31.3	36.1
Secondary	34.1	35.0	30.9	31.9	33.9	34.2
Higher	33.7	37.6	28.7	33.0	37.9	29.1
Main occupation			***			***
Not working	40.7	37.6	21.7	40.7	31.3	28.0
Professional/managerial/clerical	29.3	40.4	30.2	33.4	38.1	28.5
Service and sales	35.0	34.3	30.8	32.1	42.7	25.2
Agricultural and fishery	27.4	29.3	43.2	30.4	28.5	41.1
Plant/machine operators and elementary work	38.3	30.2	31.4	34.2	22.9	31.9
Income quintile			***			***
Poorest	29.6	30.5	39.9	35.8	29.0	35.3
Poor	28.4	33.1	38.6	26.4	27.9	45.6
Middle	33.0	32.8	34.2	32.3	33.0	34.8
Rich	39.0	32.5	28.5	34.5	35.4	30.2
Richest	38.6	37.9	23.4	36.5	39.0	30.2
Total	33.8	33.3	32.9	33.3	32.9	33.8

High = Less healthy (more risky behaviours) Low = More healthy (less risky behaviours)
***P < 0.001 **P < 0.01 *P < 0.05 Total N (Females = 4,306, Males = 3,503)
Source: Generated from GDHS, 2008

ISSN: 1744-8603