Socio-economic differences in health risk behaviour and attitudes towards health risk behaviour among Slovak adolescents

Objectives: Socio-economic differences in the frequency of smoking, alcohol consumption, drug use, physical exercise, and attitudes toward smoking were explored in a sample of Slovak adolescents (1370 boys, 1246 girls, mean age 15 years). Methods: Identification of socio-economic status was based on three indicators: the highest educational level of parents, the highest occupational class of parents, and the type of school the adolescents attended. Results: Health risk behaviour was strongly related to socioeconomic status based on all three socio-economic indicators, although there were some exceptions mostly related to education as indicator of socio-economic status and to alcohol consumption experience and drug use experience. The pattern of socio-economic differences was unfavourable for lower socioeconomic groups of adolescents, except for differences in frequency of alcohol consumption among females when highest education of parents was used as an indicator of socio-economic status. Conclusions: There are socio-economic differences in health risk behaviour. Lower socio-economic. groups of adolescents behave riskily more frequently than higher socio-economic groups of adolescents.