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In this report the data regarding coronary heart disease (CHD) from the 1990 Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Supplement of the National Health Interview Survey are used to examine the relationship between risk factor knowledge and health related behaviors among currently employed white collar(N=5,349) and blue collar(N=4,158) men workers. Blue collar employees have less knowledge about CHD risk factors, less favorable risk factors status, and poorer health practices than their white collar workers. Despite these findings within each occupational group, the relationship of knowledge to either risk factor status or health practices is similar. Knowledge is generally related to the attempts to change behaviors. However, for the different risk factors, the associations vary. For example, knowledge of cigarette smoking as a risk factor of CHD is negatively associated with reported ever smoking or current smoking, but not with heavy smoking. In contrast, knowledge of overweight, high serum cholesterol, and high blood pressure as CHD risk factors is not associated with risk factor status. These results suggest that while difference in level of knowledge and risk profiles remain between blue collar and white collar employees, the associations between knowledge and risk profiles are similar. Programs located at worksites must continue to provide education opportunities about the risk factors, especially among blue collar workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We collected data on all residents of San Diego County, California who were hospitalized for or died from a brain injury in 1981. The objectives were to assess the frequency of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) testing and the associations of BAC prevalence with the external cause of the brain injury and case outcome. We found that high BAC levels were most frequent among brain-injured subjects between the ages of 25 and 44 and among those subjects involved in motor vehicle crashes and assaults. Contrary to expectations, injury severity and hospital mortality were inversely related to BAC level, controlling for other predictors. We believe that these inverse associations might be due to differential rates of BAC testing by severity. Among brain-injured survivors with more severe injuries, however, we found that BAC level was positively associated with the prevalence of physician-diagnosed neurological impairment at discharge and with the length of hospitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]