The role of the family in developing attitudes toward health and the home environment

The current study analyzes the role of the family as social institution in the process of forming adolescent attitudes to health and the home environment. The relevance of this topic is related to the need for society to significantly improve the health of adolescents. Two parameters pertain: the socioeconomic status of the parents and the type of family. The empirical basis for the analysis was mainly the result of two cohort studies, called “Adolescent Health and the Environment,” conducted by the Institute of sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, that used a single methodology in 1996 and in 2017. Research has shown that increasing the socioeconomic status and level of education of parents has a positive impact on the share of adolescents who care about their health, the environment, and on their level of concern for serious international problems. But the socioeconomic parameters of parents are insignificant when teenagers choose motives and factors of health care. The type of family with whom the adolescent lives and the number of children in the family does not affect the self-assessment of the adolescent’s health, the choice of factors and motives for health care, or concern for environmental problems. Comparing the results of two studies, conducted 20 years apart, under a single program sponsorship, shows a small number of changes associated with the formation of adolescent attitudes to health and the environment within the family. This process in the family occurs spontaneously, with much depending on the cultural and educational level of the parents. Such stability could be considered positive if it were not for the progressive deterioration of adolescent health recorded by statistics. The main differences between the two studies in the time context recorded were, first, a significant increase in the response rate of respondents with a “good” health self-assessment, which is associated with changes in social norms in the field of health. Second, with the violation of habitual dependence — the higher the social status and higher parent level of education — the better the children’s self-assessment of their health. This can be explained by the decline in the economic status of specialists with higher education in recent years, as well as the leveling of the General level of health culture in all status groups of society. In addition, the results indicate an increased environmental culture of behavior among adolescents over the decades.