Healthy and Non-Healthy Habits, and How The Habits Change in Different Economic Times

Qingya Zhu, Li Xu, Paul D. Berger

Insurance companies usually conduct health-background checks on people who seeks insurance plans, especially life insurance and, depending on circumstances, health insurance. Thus, it is interesting for both insurance companies and consumers to know which factors impact human health. Human health is obviously a big issue in many people’s life and is significant for the growth of society. What determines the general health of people? This paper focuses on selected factors that potentially have an impact on the general health of people. These include, among others, drinking habits, smoking habits, exercise habits, and the eating of vegetables and fruit. We find that many factors have a significant effect on general health. Increased exercise and drinking turn out to be healthy habits, while smoking and having a personal doctor are negatively associated with health status. We discuss these results, some of which require further elaboration, and one of which is counter-intuitive. In addition, we perform t tests for differences in mean to determine if the level of key factors, such as people's drinking habits, smoking habits, and exercise habits, changed from before the economic crisis in 2008 to after the economic crisis in 2008.