FIRST SEMESTER

Home

5310 STATISTICS FOR HCA

CURRICULUM

Adult Mortality: A Comparison of Obesity, Smoking, and Binge Drinking as Predictors of Adult Mortality

Abstract

Three rising health concerns that produce negative health outcomes are obesity, smoking, and binge drinking.  This study examines these adverse behaviors to determine if they are predictors of adult mortality.  The ten-step hypothesis-testing model tests data from the fifty states for the year 1999.  The student ttest evaluates the significance of the variables and the F-statistic measures the significance of the regression equations for each model.  Results indicate that all three predictors, obesity, smoking, and binge drinking, are statistically significant in estimating adult mortality.  The study also determines that additional variables need to be tested to explain the unaccounted variance in each of the models.

Study

Each day Americans engage in adverse health behaviors that negatively affect their health and increase their chances of dying.  Three important behavioral risk factors that produce negative health outcomes are obesity, smoking, and drinking.  Chronic health problems associated with the three include cancer, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, hypertension, and lung disease.  Although this is not an all-inclusive list, all of these can lead to decreased life expectancy and early mortality Sturm, 2002).  Prevailing literature suggests that obesity, smoking, and drinking are interrelated one way or another, and the impact of these three elements directly affects medical care, health care delivery costs, and ultimately, early mortality (Sayette, 2002).  Treatment for obesity has produced a 36% increase in spending and a 77% increase in medication use.  Smoking has produced a 21% increase in spending for treatment and a 28% increase in medication use (Sturm, 2002).           This study attempts to identify whether an independent correlation exists between adult mortality and obesity, smoking, and binge drinking, how strong the relationships are, and how much of the relationships are due to chance.  Three alternate hypotheses are tested:  (1) That obesity is a predictor of adult mortality, (2) That smoking is a predictor of adult mortality, and (3) That binge drinking is a predictor of adult mortality.  The independent variable (Y), adult mortality, is operationally defined as the number of deaths per 100,000 for the age group 25 through 34.  The independent variable obesity (X1) is synonymous with and represents data for both overweight and obese individuals.  The independent variable binge drinking (X3) reflects the percentage of adults, 18 and older, who reported the consumption of five more alcoholic drinks on one or more occasions.           The results of the study confirmed the initial assumption that obesity and adult mortality maintained the strongest correlation.  The second assumption, that smoking and binge drinking would be equal or close to one another, was incorrect.  On the average, adult mortality (ages 25-34) among the fifty states was 112.06 deaths per 100,000, plus or minus 26.59 deaths.  On the average, for every one percent increase in obesity, adult mortality increases by 3.76 deaths.  Adult mortality increases by 3.03 deaths for every one percent increase in smoking.  Adult mortality decreases by 2.24 deaths for every one percent increase in binge drinking.  Despite the statistical significance of all three, variation in the dependent variables still exist within the models.  All three predictors were able to explain some portion of variance that was not due to chance.  Among the three models, 45.20% of the total variation of adult mortality was explained by the variation in obesity.  The shared variance value of smoking followed obesity with 34.50% of the total variation in adult mortality being explained by the variation in smoking and only 10.20% of the shared variance is accounted between adult mortality and binge drinking.           The primary conclusion drawn from this study is that the three behavioral risk factors of obesity, smoking, and binge drinking have some impact on adult mortality.  Using the results of this study as a baseline to develop appropriate programs and reduce health care expenditures will help prevent early mortality and improve the overall health of the nation.