Assignment: Promoting And Evaluating Health Behaviors

Socio-demographic and health information are displayed in Table 1. As a non-randomised sampling method was used, the study does not claim to be representative of the general population of Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamlets has a young, ethnically diverse population. Over 50% of the population belongs to an ethnic group other than white British; as pointed out above, about a third of the total population are of Bangladeshi origin. In the study sample, 65% of the population identified as belonging to an ethnic group other

than White British, of whom 56% identified as Asian. In the current study, Asian participants were purposively recruited to reflect the high level of unmet healthcare needs in this population [50]. Tower Hamlets has a slightly higher male to female ratio but the sample did not reflect this, with significantly higher numbers of women probably because most recruitment took place in GP surgeries which are more frequently attended by women, either on their own behalf or with their children [51]. Moreover, the health education programmes involved in the research included female only ESOL classes. Tower Hamlets has a particularly young population, with the third largest percentage of 20–34 year olds (37%) of all local authorities in the country. Fifty nine percent of the population are 15–44 year olds compared with 42% of this age group in the country as a whole. The average age of participants in the current study was 38 years old.