Health lifestyles during adolescence: clustering of health behaviours and social determinants in Italian adolescents

Abstract

Background: Health behaviours in adolescence have a high impact on both current and future health. The literature claims a focus on social determinants and shows that these behaviours are associated. The concept of 'health lifestyles' should be considered to account for co-occurring health behaviours and determinants interactions. The aim of this study is to increase our understanding of adolescents' health lifestyles and to (i) cluster adolescents according to a comprehensive number of health behaviours and (ii) describe these groups according to sociodemographic characteristics, perceptions of life contexts (family, school, peers or neighbourhood) and perceived physical and psychosocial health conditions.

Methods: In Italy, 906 15-year-old students participated in the cross-national Health Behaviour of School-aged Children study. Clusters were identified by applying the KAMILA clustering method and compared using analysis of variance and chi-squared tests.Results: Four clusters were identified: 'substance consumers', 'media lovers', 'active students' and 'passive students'. Each cluster exhibited different characteristics related to health behaviours and social determinants.

Conclusions: Interesting associations between health behaviours were identified, which showed the relevance of considering the adolescents' overall lifestyles. The description of each cluster permitted the identification of risks and protective factors, which may be important for designing effective health promotion activities.