One way out of the limited approach of selective interventions is to focus on more complex behavioural patterns rather than on isolated behaviours. In terms of planning comprehensive prevention programmes and interventions, it would therefore be useful to know the extent to which the most important behavioural risk factors (regular tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, an unhealthy diet and physical inactivity) aggregate in certain sectors of the population and whether typical risk groups can be identified on that basis. The cluster analysis method enables this kind of holistic analysis and facilitates the identification of intervention-relevant target groups. Although this complex method is in widespread use in sociology and commercial market research it is rare in epidemiological and public health studies.