Built and socioeconomic environment: associations with cancer-risk health behaviors among healthy emerging adults

Abstract Health compromising behaviors such as tobacco use, binge drinking, physical inactivity, sedentary behavior, obesity, and inadequate sleep are associated with increased cancer risk. Emerging adults (age 18–29) may be especially vulnerable to engaging in health compromising behaviors due to the transitional nature and novel independence during this developmental period. The current study uses data from the 2022 Health Information Trends Survey Data Linkage Project to understand relationships between aspects of the built environment (i.e., the Food Environment and the Exercise Environment) and area-based socioeconomic status (i.e., Yost index) on health behavior profiles of healthy emerging adults in the United States. Latent class analysis identified two patterns of health behaviors, of which both were considerably unhealthy for engaging in different health behaviors pertinent to cancer risk. Binary logistic regression analyses revealed a significant association between emerging adults with lower access to exercise environments and a trend towards significance for those residing in median level socioeconomic status environment (SES) with emerging adults in health behavior Class 2. Analyses focused on identifying sociodemographic factors that increase cancer risk revealed that education level moderated the relationship between SES and health behavior class, and that education level and, separately, living in a rural area moderated the relationship between the exercise environment and health behavior class. Findings provide a greater understanding of emerging adults’ built and socioeconomic environments that present barriers to engaging in healthy lifestyles. The findings present opportunities for future research and evidence-based interventions to be conducted with consideration to the role of the built and socioeconomic environment in mitigating cancer risk among the emerging adult population.