What kinds of people do not use seat belts?

In the course of a Community Mental Health Epidemiology study conducted in Washington County, Maryland between December, 1971 and July, 1974, interviews were conducted with randomly selected adults in a weekly systematic sampling of households. In a subsequent re-interview of 1009 respondents who had family cars with seat belts, nearly 47 per cent said they did not use them. Non-use of seat belts was significantly higher among females and among persons with less than high school education or low income. Non-use of seat belts was also higher among those who felt that their station in life as measured by the Cantril ladder was unsatisfactory, who felt powerless to change at least some aspects of their lives, and who were infrequent church attenders. Significant associations were also found with infrequency of two other preventive health behaviors, dental checkups and Pap tests. Among young adults the tendency seemed to be for marriage to increase the non-use of seat belts among females but to decrease non-use among males.

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