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. 2017 Sep;11(5):1385-1387.
doi: 10.1177/1557988315598555. Epub 2015 Jul 31.

Self-Rated Health and Health Care Access Associated With African American Men's Health Self-Efficacy

Terry Thompson  1 , Jamie A Mitchell  2 , Vicki Johnson-Lawrence  1 , Daphne C Watkins  2 , Charles S Modlin Jr  3
Affiliations

Self-Rated Health and Health Care Access Associated With African American Men's Health Self-Efficacy

Terry Thompson et al. Am J Mens Health. 2017 Sep.

Abstract

Health self-efficacy, a measure of one's self-assurance in taking care of their own health, is known to contribute to a range of health outcomes that has been under examined among African American men. The purpose of this investigation was to identify and contextualize predictors of general health self-efficacy in this population. A cross-sectional sample of surveys from 558 African American was examined. These men were older than 18 years, could read and write English, and attended a hospital-based community health fair targeting minority men in 2011. The outcome of interest was health self-efficacy, which was assessed by asking, "Overall, how confident are you in your ability to take good care of your health?" Responses ranged from 1 ( not confident at all) to 5 ( completely confident). Covariates included age, self-rated health, health insurance status, having a regular physician, and being a smoker. The mean age of participants was 54.4 years, and 61.3% of participants indicated confidence in their ability to take good care of their health. Older age and being a smoker were inversely associated with the outcome. Good self-rated health, having health insurance, and having a regular doctor were positively associated with reports of health self-efficacy. Findings suggest that multiple points of connection to the health care system increase the likelihood of health self-efficacy for this sample and interventions to support older African American men who may evaluate their own health status as poor and who may face barriers to health care access are implicated.

Keywords: access to care; development and aging; men of color; men’s studies; psychosocial and cultural issues; special populations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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