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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1405675
This article is part of the Research Topic Health Literacy and Digital Health Literacy among Older Adults: Public Health Interventions View all 7 articles

Peer effects of health behaviors and the moderating role of Internet use among middle-aged and older adults: a nationally representative crosssectional survey in China

Provisionally accepted
Yanyin Cui Yanyin Cui 1Hongrui Bao Hongrui Bao 2Fang Xia Fang Xia 2*Liya Zhang Liya Zhang 2Jie Ren Jie Ren 2
  • 1 Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
  • 2 School of Health Management, Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, Changchun, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This study investigates peer effects on the health behaviors of middle-aged and elderly people in China and examines the moderating role of Internet use.Methods: A total of 16,188 respondents were selected from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2020 data set. Ordinary Least Squares and Quantile Regression were used to validate the peer effect of health behaviors on middle-aged and older adults, and a moderating effects model was used to test the moderating roles of Internet use and Internet proficiency. Finally, the peer effect was analyzed for heterogeneity according to Internet use preferences.The peer effect had a positive influence on the individual health behaviors of middle-aged and elderly people in China (β=0.5341, p<0.001). Middle-aged and elderly people were more sensitive to the average health behavior level of the community when they lived in rural communities and/or had a low level of education. Internet use positively moderated the health behavior peer effect in the elderly population (β=0.0094, p<0.1), and Internet proficiency negatively moderated the peer effect of the health behaviors of the middle-aged population (β=0.1589, p<0.1). According to the magnitude of the influence of peer effect, the Internet preference type can be ranked from social and entertainment (β=0.6250, p<0.01), to cultural and entertainment (β=0.5835, p<0.01), to comprehensive (β=0.4622, p<0.01).There is a peer effect on the health behaviors of middle-aged and old-aged individuals, in which Internet use plays a moderating role. The construction of healthy communities should be promoted, giving full play to the community's active role in health promotion. Attention should be paid to the health-enabling function of the Internet, encouraging middle-aged and elderly people to use the Internet actively, moderately, and diversely, and making full use of the advantages of short videos for online health education.

    Keywords: Health Behavior, Middle-aged and elderly people, Peer effects, Internet use, Internet preference

    Received: 23 Mar 2024; Accepted: 09 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cui, Bao, Xia, Zhang and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Fang Xia, School of Health Management, Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, Changchun, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.