Who is responsible for health: Iranian Health Perception Survey (IHPS)

To examine how people thinking and behaving about their health. This was a nationwide cross sectional study. A random sample of individuals age 18 to 65 years were entered into the study. Respondents were asked to rate their views on a 5-point scale indicating who is responsible for their own health. The record of demographic and socioeconomic data included age, gender, education, marital status, employment, income and chronic diseases. Logistic regression analysis used to estimate odds ratios for contributing factors to responsibility for health. In all, 27,883 individuals taken part in the study. The means age of the respondents was 33.67 (SD=11.8) years. Overall, 52 % of people reported that individuals themselves are responsible for their own health and 14 % reported that the state is responsible for public community health. The results of logistic regression analysis showed that males (OR=1.40), low level income groups (OR=1.43), having at least one chronic disease (OR=1.52) were more likely to assign responsibility for health to governance sectors. The findings suggest that most people believe that health is a personal issue that everybody should take care of him or herself.