Abstract
The concept of health protective behaviors explicitly calls attention to the fact that individuals undertake behaviors they believe are protective of their health whether or not their beliefs correspond to professional medical advice. There are four types of health protective behaviors: life style changes undertaken with and without medical advice, and treatment regimens undertaken with and without medical advice. The present paper, which presents data on three of these four types of health protective behaviors, finds only weak associations between these behaviors and both sociodemographics and general health orientations. The implications of these findings for both health education aimed at changing these behaviors and sociological analysis aimed at understanding these behaviors is discussed.
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