Factors Contributing to Favorable Health Status

Health status is one of the most important topics in an individual’s day to day life. It is logical that an individual would want to achieve the highest possible health status. This investigation seeks to answer the following questions: How do various factors contribute to an individual’s health status? Which factors are the most significant? After an extensive literature review, a selection of variables was taken from a 2012 dataset in MEPS. A logit regression was run on the dataset along with a marginal effects calculation. Many factors turned out to be significant, but among the most influential factors on health status were the decisions to smoke and exercise.

健康状况是个体日常生活中最为核心的议题之一。个体追求最优健康状态的诉求合乎情理。本研究旨在解答如下问题：各类因素如何对个体的健康状况产生影响？其中哪些因素的影响最为显著？在完成广泛的文献综述后，本研究从2012年的医疗支出小组调查（Medical Expenditure Panel Survey，MEPS）数据集中选取了若干研究变量。随后，本研究对该数据集开展了Logit回归分析，并同步计算了边际效应。最终结果显示，诸多因素均具有统计学显著性，其中对健康状况影响最为突出的为吸烟与运动的行为决策。