Chapter 3 Understanding Health and Illness Behaviours
Chapter Overview
Key Issues and Learning Outcomes
Key issues within this chapter:- An understanding of influences on health and illness behaviour is necessary in order to plan effective health promotion interventions.
- Influences on behaviour operate at the individual, family and friends, community, national/society level.
- A range of models can be applied to understanding influences on behaviour and health decision-making.
- Social and ethnographic research is necessary to ensure that health promotion interventions are tailored to the specific needs and situation of individuals and communities.
- apply models of behaviour to understand factors that influence health actions at the individual, family and friends, community and national/society level.
- identify the contribution of social research to health promotion planning.
- draw on models of health and illness behaviour to plan tailored health promotion interventions.
Test your Knowledge
Having read the chapter can you now answer the following questions?
- Identify five different types of behaviours that you might wish to modify in a health promotion intervention.
- What is meant by the term 'illness behaviour'? Consider your own illness behaviour and how it relates to the typical sequence identified.
- Apply the Health Belief model to a situation with which you are familiar.
- How does the 'Stages of Change Model' enable health promotion to be tailored to the individual?
- Why are social networks important in understanding behaviour change?
- How would you determine the role of culture on health?
- Why is the choice of models and theories a reflection of the debates in health promotion?
Internet Links
Health Promotion Theories
Theory at a Glance - a comprehensive overview of various behavioural theories provided by the National Cancer Institute
http://www.cancer.gov/PDF/481f5d53-63df-41bc-bfaf-5aa48ee1da4d/TAAG3.pdf
Communication Initiative: Directory of Change Theories. This section of the Communication Initiative contains detailed information on a wide range of change theories used in health promotion.
http://www.comminit.com/changetheories.html
Kathy DeBarr's comprehensive review of health education theories in the Californian Journal of Health Promotion 2004, Volume 2, Issue 1, 74-87 http://www.csuchico.edu/cjhp/2/1/74-87-debarr.pdf
For background to Abraham Maslow and his theory of motivation see www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/maslow.html and a full listing of his publications at http://www.maslow.com/
The Social Capital Gateway.
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/
For a useful discussion of Cognitive Dissonance theory at a Colorado University web site see
http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Theory/dissonance/
For a discussion of Alfred Bandura and Social Cognitive Theory see Pajares (2002). ‘Overview of social cognitive theory and of self-efficacy.' http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/eff.html
Social Network Theory - see the introduction provided by Charles Kadushin. http://home.earthlink.net/~ckadushin/Texts/Basic%20Network%20Concepts.pdf
Society for Medical Anthropology - a useful website with details of the Medical Anthropology journal
http://www.medanthro.net/
Research papers
Berkman, L.F., S.L. Syme (1979). ‘Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: a nine-year follow-up study of Almeda county residents.' American Journal of Epidemiology, 109, 186-204.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/109/2/186
Coleman, J. (1988). ‘Social Capital in the creation of human capital.'American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95-S120. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/action/doSearch?searchText=coleman+social+capital&filter=all&x=8&y=5
Stead, M., Tagg, S., MacKintosh, A. M. and Eadie, D. (2005) ‘Development and evaluation of a mass media Theory of Planned Behaviour intervention to reduce speeding.' Health Education Research, 20, 36-50. http://her.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/20/1/36
Young, J. T. (2004). ‘Illness behaviour: a selective review and synthesis.' Sociology of Health and Illness, 26, 1-31.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2004.00376.x/enhancedabs/
