A preliminary survey of the health behaviors of community leaders

The purpose of this study was to investigate the health behavior of a town's community leaders and other issues associated with that behavior. Structured questionnaires designed by the researchers were used to collect data at a meeting for the announcement of community building; they were filled out in the 10 or 20 minutes before the meeting began and 70 valid responses were received. The SPSS for Windowversion 10.0 soft ware package was used for data analysis. The results of the study showed that the community leaders demonstrated higher standards of health-protective behaviors (i.e. elder/adult check ups, Pap smear exam and breast self-examination) than others living in the community. Variables such as gender, educational level, self-perceived health status, number of chronic illnesses were correlated with different types of dietary behavior. Subjects who were 40 years old and over, educated to junior high school or lower, who had per formed less than one year of community service and were free of chronic ill ness engaged in relatively regular exercise. Subjects who had per formed more than one year of community service were more likely to utilize the preventive services provided by national health insurance. It is recommended that public health nurses improve their cooperation with community leaders over providing health-related activities in order to promote better health behavior on the part of such leaders.