Factors associated with subjective state of health in college students

Abstract

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has been deeply painful, it has provided a rare opportunity to study the behavioral responses of individuals in adapting to an unprecedented life event. An analysis of participants’ subjective health ratings during the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted by utilizing data from a survey of college students across seven universities in the US. In this study, we challenged the unidimensional factors to the subjective wellbeing by considering all multiplicative associations of those factors. Considering the interaction terms is especially important as not considering those impacts might obscure our understanding regarding the real associations. It was found that while higher screen hours, BMI, and various negative feelings are negatively associated with higher subjective health, higher family income, social class, and students’ and their mothers’ educations are associated with a higher subjective well-being. However, the impacts of the majority variables are interactive. For instance, the impact of mother’s education varies based on the genders of students, or the impact of screen hours differs based on family income. In addition, the degree students limit of exercise at home or gym changes based on the negative feeling they experience during the pandemic. Remarkably, during the pandemic while irrationally limiting exercise at home was associated with a lower subjective health, limiting exercise at gym was positively associated with the response.