Positive health practices and temporal perspective in low-income adults

The purpose of this study was to describe health-promoting behaviours and temporal perspective in low-income adults.

Positive health practices represent a broad range of health-promoting behaviours. The ability to adopt positive health practices may be influenced by many factors, one of which is temporal perspective, the perceived relationship between past, present and future times.

This exploratory study was conducted in a south central Pennsylvania community with a convenience sample of individuals who were eligible for a subsidized low-income housing programme. Positive health practices were measured using the Personal Lifestyle Questionnaire. Temporal perspective was measured with the Circles Test.

The sample consisted of 75 subjects, 61 women (81%) and 14 men (19%). Positive health practices were relatively high (mean = 70 out of a possible score of 96). Forty three per cent of the subjects expressed future temporal dominance and 80% of the subjects in this study expressed non-continuous temporal relatedness.

Health-promoting behaviours in this low-income sample were similar to those reported in other samples in middle-class adult samples. The percentage of subjects who expressed future dominance was similar to findings in other samples. The percentage of subjects who expressed non-continuous temporal relatedness was different from findings reported in other samples, suggesting that perception of the relationship of past, present and future times is different in this low-income sample compared with other samples.

The temporal relatedness findings suggest that low-income individuals may not believe that adopting positive health practices will influence future health.