Gender specific associations between social network and health behavior inold age

Social networks may affect old people's health behaviours, such as their su bjective health evaluations, health care utilization and symptom reporting. In the study, the relationships between social network characteristics and health behaviors were investigated for each gender separately. lt was assu med that the relationships differ between the genders and that female healt h behavior would be more strongly related to the social network. Social net work characteristics, reported symptoms, subjective health and health care utilization were assessed for 107 men and 77 women that were 71 years of ag e. The results showed that, for women, a general satisfaction with the soci al network was associated with good subjective health. In addition, satisfa ction with social participation and social anchorage were associated with a high frequency of health care utilization. For men, none of these health-r elated behaviors were bivariately associated with the social network. Furth ermore, for women, the frequency of reported symptoms were more often assoc iated with social network characteristics. Multivariate analyses showed tha t for women, dissatisfaction with social participation and support from the neighborhood predicted stomach symptoms. For men, dissatisfaction with ins trumental support and contact with children predicted tension symptoms. Thi s study suggests that health behaviour relates both to social network and g ender.