Socio-economic Inequalities and Risk Behaviors among School-aged Children in Bulgaria: Results of the HBSC
Socio-economic Inequalities and Risk Behaviors among School-aged Children in Bulgaria: Results of the HBSC

Summary/Abstract: In the paper we describe the main results from the last wave of the international survey Health Behaviors of School-aged Children – HBSC in which Bulgaria took part in 2014. The analysis is focused on the following risky behaviors of the Bulgarian school-children at age 11, 13 and 15: bullying at school, smoking, drinking and cannabis use. The methods that we apply are descriptive analysis of the risky behaviors of students and regression analysis in which we test the impact on the risky behaviors of individual characteristics (gender and age) and characteristics of social environment, i.e. family, peers and school. In the analysis we test also the influence of the material status of family measured through a composed index. The main results from the analysis reveal that the socio-economic inequalities between families in Bulgaria have significant influence on health behaviors of school-children. Smoking is a wide-spread practice among students regardless of the socio-economic status of their families. Drinking and cannabis use are practiced more often among young people from families with high socio-economic status. Boys coming from families with low material status are more often involved in bullying at school. Bullying at school is more frequent among 13 years old students and decreases with age. From the students who have been bullied at school, bulling is more frequent among the children from families with high or low socio-economic status.

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