Table 1. Characteristics of respondents according to ethnic groups.

	Ethnic Groups
Attributes	Malays n = 1554	Chinese n = 854	Indians n = 173	Indigenous n = 825	Total n = 3406	Pearson Chi-square p value
Age
50 s	46.0	46.6	53.8	42.4	45.7
60 s	35.3	33.7	31.2	36.1	34.9
70 s +	18.7	19.7	15.0	21.5	19.4	0.125
Gender
Female	68.7	63.2	73.4	63.0	66.2
Male	31.3	36.8	26.6	37.0	33.8	0.001
Marital status
Unmarried	39.3	34.3	44.5	39.9	38.4
Married	60.7	65.7	55.5	60.1	61.6	0.019
Residence
Rural	59.1	21.7	20.8	77.9	52.3
Urban	40.9	78.3	79.2	22.1	47.7	<0.001
Education
No schooling	34.3	23.6	20.9	70.9	39.8
Primary	47.3	44.3	43.6	21.1	40.0
Secondary +	18.4	32.1	35.5	8.0	20.2	<0.001
Work status
Not working	67.0	62.4	75.1	57.1	63.9
Still working	33.0	37.6	24.9	42.9	36.1	<0.001
Other sources of income
0 source	21.0	18.4	25.4	30.4	22.9
1–2 sources	46.8	59.0	50.3	50.5	50.9
3+ sources	32.2	22.6	24.3	19.0	26.2	<0.001
Exercise
0 times	59.6	46.3	43.5	83.8	61.3
1–3timesa week	21.4	23.1	25.9	12.3	19.8
4+ times a week	19.0	30.6	30.6	3.9	18.8	<0.001
Smoker
Non smoker	69.3	73.8	83.2	55.8	67.9
Previous smoker	12.2	12.2	8.1	17.8	13.4
Current smoker	18.5	14.1	8.7	26.4	18.8	<0.001
Physical limitations
0 limits.	75.5	85.0	82.1	80.8	79.5
1–2 limits.	14.4	9.5	9.8	12.7	12.5
3+ limits.	10.2	5.5	8.1	6.4	8.0	<0.001
Self-rated health
Good	39.5	54.2	36.4	33.3	41.5
Average	45.0	34.4	38.7	41.6	41.2
Poor	15.4	11.4	24.9	25.1	17.2	<0.001