Socioeconomic inequalities in health behaviors: exploring mediation pathways through material conditions and time orientation

Table 3 Mediation results, Hypothesis 2: Educational level → Time orientation → Material conditions → Health behavior

Outcomes (in separate models)		Measure of material conditions (tested in separate models)
		Time orientation → Financial strain		Time orientation → Housing tenure		Time orientation → Income group
	N	IE	DE	IE	DE	IE	DE
Health behaviors
Smoking	2661	0.002	−0.010	−0.001	0.009	−0.002**	0.009
Sports participation	2420	−0.002*	0.064**	0.001	0.062*	0.001*	0.043
Health behavior-related outcomes
BMI	2630	0.000	−0.059*	0.000	−0.063**	0.000	−0.046
Self-assessed health	2674	−0.001*	0.146***	0.001	0.123***	0.002**	0.095***

Results are shown for each of 12 separate models testing the effects of educational level on each of the four outcomes (smoking, sports participation, BMI, self-assessed health) through time orientation followed by each of the three measures of material conditions (financial strain, housing tenure, income). In the models, all of which include the mediators, direct effects refer to the effect of educational level on health behavior that is not through the sequence of mediators and indirect effects refer to the effect of educational level on health behavior through the sequence of mediators
BMI body mass index, DE direct effect, IE indirect effect through time orientation followed by material conditions
Reported effects are statistically significant at *α = 0.1, **α = 0.05, ***α = 0.01

ISSN: 1475-9276