| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 健康促進與衛生教育學系 === 105 === Background and Objectives
Children are considered the future of a country, and promoting child health should be one of the topics in a health policy agenda. Previous studies have shown that many factors were have been associated with a child’s health. In addition to the family’s socioeconomic background, and the analytical approach for other significant factors, such as parental health behaviors, were still lacking of an ecological perspective, meaning that it is deficient in the concept of family health. This study, therefore, aims to fill this gap, as the objectives of this study were to investigate the association between a family health behavior cluster with the mother's breastfeeding, infant healthcare utilization, and health status.
Methods
We used secondary data from a national representative survey entitled “Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS)”, which was the research commissioned by the Health Promotional Administration. There were 21,248 infants aged six-months that were surveyed in 2005. In order to analyze the family health behavior clustering phenomena, we selected infants from married two-parent families and who lived with their parents. To consider the validity of the data, we excluded the cases where the questionnaires were completed by the caregivers (i.e. not the mothers). In addition, to avoid any confounding factors such as the health of the infants and parents, we selected the cases where the parents and infants were without catastrophic illnesses, and disabilities, not pre-term, infants without congenital diseases, and mothers who did not have any Gestational diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and Eclampsia during their gestation period. The sample that met the above criteria numbered 13,625. The valid sample varied and was contingent on the dependent variables used in the analysis, 13,535 for analyzing factors associated with breastfeeding, 13,533 for infant emergency care, 13,536 for infant hospital admission, and 13,537 for infant health.
This study used the cluster analysis to analyze the parental health behaviors. Based on the results, the multinomial Logit Model was used to analyze the association between breastfeeding and the family health behavior cluster type. To analyze the associations between the family health behavior cluster type and the infant healthcare utilization, this study used the Logit Model. Finally, this study used the Logit Model and the Ordered Probit Model, depending on the type of dependent variables, to analyze the association between the family health behavior cluster type and infant health.
Conclusions and Recommendations
This study found that those who were born in a "smoking, alcohol, and drinking family", and a “smoking father family”, were less likely to receive breastfeeding, and those who were born in a “smoking, alcohol, and drinking family” were more likely to have emergency and/or hospital admission, as well as having poorer parent-rated self-health. Therefore, the main target group should focus on the substance use family when implementing the child health promotion program. In addition, it is suggested that the associations between family health behaviors and their impact on the infant healthcare utilization and health status, should be included in the health education materials or campaign messages. Finally, the government, as well as concerned parties, should find an appropriate timing for the health education interventions focusing on the parents in order to achieve their goal of promoting child health.
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