RESEARCH ON LIFE-STYLES AND HEALTH - SEARCHING FOR MEANING

This paper is based on an alternative approach to standard quantitativ e analyses in research on behavior and health. Theory and methods focu sed on the elaboration of complex situational and behavioral influence s on health are used in secondary analyses of data from a population h ealth survey in Spain. Findings showing fundamental differences in the relationships among the behavioral and health variables within variou s age, gender and social groups illustrate the importance of studying interacting influences in relevant subgroups of the population. Quite meaningful findings can be hidden in behavioral research limited to id entifying global statistical correlations in cross-sectional and longi tudinal data. The impact that statistical-methods can have on the find ings from analyses that are not guided by theory and logic based on su bstantive questions derived from the research literature is discussed. The results point to the need to study patterns of behavior in their contexts of occurrence in research on lifestyles and health.