Mid-term Exam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-term Exam

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1. There are four dimensions along which a potential audience can be characterized: Disease or at-risk status, life cycle stage, racial or ethnic value, and sociodemographic characteristics.

People diagnosed with life-threatening diseases experience the symptoms associated with the disease as well as the stress that comes with it, and they still have to make decisions regarding their medical care. In critical times of illness, patients become limited in attending to new information and even developing new skills. The strategies used to control and limit the initial behavior change, such as smoking, may be insufficient for the patients (Blue, 2016). In improving the maintenance of the recommended practices and approaches for high-risk patients’ models and theories of health, behaviors can suggest appropriate strategies. In Norfolk, Virginia, there are top health conditions percentages. Mental health, suicide, diabetes, drug abuse, and obesity lead to high hospitalization rates in Norfolk.

In the life cycle stage from childbirth, health education is provided. Children can make assumptions that illness is a punishment for their wrongdoings. Necessary education for building a child’s cognitive aspect to understand the beliefs and develop ways to understand is essential. In Norfolk, Virginia, there is a high infant birth rate of approximately fourteen percent; this makes education a vital necessity in all life cycle stages. Children grow to teenagers; the teenagers may feel invulnerable to diseases and accidents. The creation of awareness becomes an essential part.

Racial or ethnic value has been linked to both health behavior and health status. Race and ethnicities characterize audiences for change in their health behavior. There is a rise of African-Americans in the city of Norfolk in the state of Virginia; this is a factor that should be within the bounds of the programs associated with health to understand and identify appropriate channels and media to reach the consumers.

Sociodemographic status links both health behavior and status. Norfolk’s large population is inclusive of different people from different social factors with varied demographic factors. Recognizing and understanding the differences in mortality rates across sociodemographic groups has increased the number of levels of reducing and eliminating any health differences.

2. There are useful health behavior theories, and theories that tend to be useful during various stages of making plans, implementing, and evaluation of interventions. Different theories have different foci but are complementary; this includes Theories of action and theories of the problem.

Theories of action are also known as change theories. These theories provide the guide of intervention development since they form the basis of evaluation, making the evaluator create assumptions on how a specific program should operate and work (Taris, 2017).

Theories of the problem are also referred to as explanatory theories; they assist in locating a problem by identifying the reason for its existence and predicting behaviors under defined conditions. These theories provide a guide for factors like attitudes, social support, knowledge, among many others.

3. There are five principles of ecological perspective.

Interventions involving multilevel should be most effective in changing behaviors. There is an essential influence on all levels of influence. The policies and the surrounding environments should be in line with the implementation of change to support behavior change. Environmental changes are in a position to influence one’s changes. Changes are temporary and can only be effective only if the participants are willing to change.

Ecological models should be behavior-specific. Ecological models are purposefully meant to guide research and intervention when channeled to specific health behaviors, and they tend to be more effective than generalization. There is a need to identify both environmental and policy variables specific to a particular behavior for maximum effectiveness; this is a challenge in the development since the lessons learned from one behavior may be opposite of the same behavior.

There is interaction across levels regarding influence on behavior. Variables work together when there is interaction. Ecological models specify several levels of influence. There are great possibilities for the existence of many variables at individual levels; this may be a challenge in the development and use of ecological models. There is a greater need for research to lead to the advancement of knowledge to establish different interactions across different levels.

Environmental factors and context are fundamental determinants of behaviors linked to health. Social and physical environmental factors are critical determinants of health behavior since behaviors are well predicted in the situations people are in. Behavior settings restrict the wide range of behaviors by promoting specific behaviors as well as limiting others. Environmental factors shape interpersonal behaviors of health behaviors.

There are several levels of influence on health behaviors. The physical environment and sociocultural factors apply to more than one level, like community and organizational levels. The inclusion of different levels of influence distinguishes ecological models from theories that primarily focus on few levels like one or two at most.

4. The health belief model is a theory that focusses on the individual level. It has an intuitive logic. It was developed to answer practical questions to establish reasoning on various actions or behavior of individuals. An assumption is created that people will take the required action on health behavior when there is a belief that doing so will reduce the threat by making it less severe (Lorenc, 2012). Over the decades, the Health belief model has been widely expanded as opposed to other frameworks, and it has several significant components that predict reasons for the course of action among people to control, detect and prevent illness conditions. These key components include self-efficacy, cues to action, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, perceived severity, and perceived susceptibility.

Self-efficacy refers to the belief that one can do the required and recommended health behaviors. It is also referred to as the confidence in health behaviors.

Cues to action refer to both the external and internal factors that have the ability to trigger health behavior.

Perceived barriers refer to assumptions linked to the obstacles to performing a health behavior and both tangible and intangible negative effects of adopting health behavior.

Perceived benefits refer to the beliefs about the tangible and psychological benefits of adopting a health behavior.

Perceived severity refers to the assumptions based on the seriousness of transmitting a condition or illness and the consequences after adopting health behavior.

 

Perceived susceptibility refers to the beliefs regarding the possibilities of obtaining illness or a certain condition. All these components relate to one another in various ways of their interaction since they are dependent on each other.

5. Social cognitive theory focusses on the importance of relationship on health level at the interpersonal level. It addresses the existing tension between social structure and human agency. There is an interaction established between human agency and the environment and how they influence each other. Social cognitive theory is the proposition that people have the ability to alter and build the environment (Anderson, 2007). The major constructs for Social Cognitive Theory are; Personal cognitive factors such as confidence, socio-environmental factor, and behavioral factors.

Self-efficacy is a Social Cognitive Construct which is enhanced through mastery experiences, verbal persuasion, social modeling, and practice under stress-free environments to build confidence.

Collective Efficacy is a significant construct since individuals can operate as a group to better their shared goals, early success, and communication teamwork.

Knowledge as a major construct for Social Cognitive Theory leads to the understanding of and performing certain behaviors due to the information of risks and benefits of change.

Outcome expectations of either positive or negative results are major constructs for Social Cognitive Theory. Expected results can exist as social, which refers to the reactions from others, physical which relates to the contact within oneself or towards others, or self-evaluative; this is the reaction to one’s behavior within his or her own boundaries.

References

Anderson, E. S., Winett, R. A., & Wojcik, J. R. (2007). Self-regulation, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and social support: social cognitive theory and nutrition behavior. Annals of behavioral medicine, 34(3), 304-312.

Blue, S., Shove, E., Carmona, C., & Kelly, M. P. (2016). Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un) healthy practices. Critical Public Health, 26(1), 36-50.

Lorenc, T., Clayton, S., Neary, D., Whitehead, M., Petticrew, M., Thomson, H., … & Renton, A. (2012). Crime, fear of crime, environment, and mental health and wellbeing: mapping review of theories and causal pathways. Health & place, 18(4), 757-765.

Taris, T. W., Leisink, P. L., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2017). Applying occupational health theories to educator stress: Contribution of the job demands-resources model. In Educator Stress (pp. 237-259). Springer, Cham.