Wiener Gesundheits- und Sozialsurvey Vienna Health and Social ...

and those in better positions, while foreigners are less
likely to believe this.
90 percent of men and women are very or fairly satisfied
with their lives as a whole. Satisfaction increases
slightly with age, more strongly so with better positions
and higher income.
Few differences were noted in the spread of life events
(calamities) during childhood, which are considered indicators
for individual resources. What does increase
slightly with age is the willingness to report cases. There
also seems to be a fairly even spread of cases of authoritarian
upbringing. It should be noted, however, that a
conspicuous number of people who opt for an apprenticeship
have experienced this kind of upbringing.
Subjectively experienced quality of life changes little
with age, yet it does seem to be more strongly felt among
Priority Measures
Health Relevant Behaviour
A person’s state of health and their ability to deal with
health problems are markedly influenced – in a positive
as well as in a negative way - by their behaviour or attitude
to life. Health relevant behaviour is divided into
three subchapters. The first is dedicated to health behaviour
in the traditional sense, including physical activities
and nutrition, the second deals with drug consumption
and the third with how and to what extent national
health services are made use of.
Positive health behaviour as the sum total of behaviour
modes increases with age and then begins to deteri-
WIENER GESUNDHEITS- UND SOZIALSURVEY
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
people of higher social standing. As for personal resources,
there is a widespread sense of coherence, i.e. a generalised
and lasting disposition which refers to a person’s
ability to meet the challenges of life and which tends to
further increase with age. Men have a slightly stronger
sense of coherence than women, as do people of higher
social standing. The degree of anomie, i.e. witnessing
the disintegration of social values and standards, tends
to drop with age and increase with lower social standing,
the conspicuous exception being women in leading positions
who report a high degree of anomie.
As to the conclusions to be drawn from the correlation of
social and individual resources, it seems quite evident
that well established social conditions provide a sound
basis for the development of individual resources.
On the whole, people of higher social status are better
equipped with individual resources than others.
● Promote life-long self-confidence and capacity to act
● Promote self-confidence of people of lower social levels and foreigners
● Increase resources to handle situations (general resistance resources)
● Improve educational facilities for everyone
● Facilitate access to information and knowledge, reduce obstacles
● Provide access to education, information and counselling, particularly for people of lower social status
● Promote equality in all walks of life (placing special emphasis on the lowest social level)
● Provide fair access to external resources as a prerequisite for the positive development of individual resources
● Offer targeted and gender-specific services for different social groups, e.g. educational guidance, family
counselling, contact points for reporting family violence
orate with people aged 74 and above. Female university
graduates and men with secondary education did best in
this category with regard to their degree of education.
With the exception of women in the highest income
bracket, positive health behaviour increases with income
and professional status.
Health awareness, i.e. taking care of one’s own health,
increases with age. Women are found to take care of
their own health more frequently than men, regardless
of their level of education or professional status. As people
grow older they not only become more aware of their
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