Abstract
College is at once a challenging and exciting time for students, and involves balancing pressures to perform well academically and to negotiate a complex universe of social activity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that in order to maintain a standard of good health in college, students should engage in behaviors that promote good health. Studies have pointed to the correlation between overall good health and happiness. Ethnicity and race on college campuses plays a part in students’ health status. Therefore, understanding the relationship between happiness and health for college students in the context of their ethnicities is meaningful. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of ethnicity on college students’ levels of health promotion engagement and subjective happiness. Methods: A 24 item Personal Lifestyle Questionnaire, and 4-item Subjective Happiness Scale along with a 17-item Demographic Survey were administered electronically to a sample of 218 students enrolled in college. A one-way multiple Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine whether differences in ethnicity resulted in differences in college students’ levels of health promotion engagement and happiness. MANOVA results revealed statistically significant differences among ethnicities for both dependent variables [Wilks’ Λ=.898, F(10, 404)=2.475, p=.007, ŋ2=0.58]. Mean scores for health promotion engagement for Native American students were highest among the ethnicities, and mean scores of Asian students were highest among the ethnicities for subjective happiness. A Bonferroni post-hoc test revealed that African American and Native Americans differed the most regarding their levels of happiness.
Presenters
Priya BanerjeeProfessor, Public Health and Health Education, State University of New York, College at Brockport, New York, United States Amar Kanekar
Associate Professor, School of Counseling, Human Performance and Rehabilitation, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Arkansas, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Health Promotion and Education
KEYWORDS
College Students, Ethnicity, Happiness, Health Behaviors
