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Quantitative Definition of Low-Health-Interest Populations by Using Regression Trees: A Nationwide Internet Survey in
Yoko Nishizawa1,2, Takuya Yamada1, Kumi Sugimoto3
1Teikyo University Graduate School of Public Health, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173-8605, Japan.
Background:
Reducing health disparities is a public health issue. Identification of low-health-interest populations is important, but a definition of people with low health interest has not yet been established. We aimed to quantitatively define low-health-interest populations.
Methods:
A nationwide cross-sectional internet survey was conducted in 2022. We compiled regression tree (RT) analyses with/without adjustment for age, sex, and socioeconomic status with the 12-item Interest in Health Scale (IHS, score range 12-48) as an explanatory variable and the 10 composite health behaviors as a dependent variable. We defined the first IHS branching condition from the root node as a lower-health-interest group and the terminal node with the lowest health behaviors as the lowest-health-interest group.
Results:
The mean IHS value of 22,263 analyzed participants was 32.1 ± 5.6; it was higher in females and in those who were aged over 45 years, had a high education, a high income, or a spouse. The first branching condition was IHS 31.5, and the terminal node branched at 24.5, before/after adjustment for covariates.
Conclusions:
We determined the cutoff values of the IHS as <32 for a lower-health-interest group and <25 for the lowest-health-interest group. Using these cutoffs might enable us to reveal the characteristics of low-health-interest populations.
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