Relationship among health habits, social assets, psychologic well-being, life change, and alterations in health status.

To examine variables which may temper life change and enable individuals to withstand high degrees of life change without developing illness, a questionnaire was mailed to a systematically selected sample of the residents of Renton, Washington, of which 548 (57 percent) were returned. The major statistical analysis was linear correlation and multiple regression. When relationships between the major variables--health habits, social assets, psychologic well-being, and life change--and the dependent variable-alterations in health status--were examined, the single best predictor of subsequent alterations in health status for respondents in this study was found to be the magnitude of the life change. As the life changes increased, the risk of becoming ill also increased. The notion that health habits, psychologic well-being, and social assets might temper life change and make it possible to avoid a change in health status was not borne but strongly in the results of the analysis of data. These variables were weakly associated, however, with maintenance of health status.