Health Behavior Introduction
Health behavior is things that people do to improve their health and health outcomes when they are on medication. Health behavior enables people to involve themselves in practices that would ensure a healthy life, for instance, not smoking, eating healthy meals, exercising, and having enough rest. These healthy behaviors enable people to live longer since their bodies are resilient and not susceptible to diseases that they might be exposed to within their environments. There are various health behaviors (Keren et al., 2021). They include; preventive health behavior, sick-role behavior, illness behavior, risky sexual activities, adherence to prescribed medical plans and treatments, and healthcare-seeking behaviors. Some of these health behaviors are affected by social determinants of health. The determinants of health that affect health behaviors comprise education access and quality, economic stability, healthcare access, and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social community context. These factors can impact a person’s health behaviors depending on how effectively they support their daily livelihood.
The significance of health behavior to public health.
In this work, the health behavior that will be discussed is preventive health behavior. Preventive health behavior enables individuals, healthcare providers, and stakeholders to observe health practices that would allow people to avoid exposure to disease-causing organisms within their niche. Healthcare behavior is significant to the public since it allows people to practice behaviors that would enable them to observe preventative methods towards diseases and boost their body immunity to fight against any disease they are exposed to (Keren et al., 2021). Moreover, some preventive health behavior significant to the public is behavioral, normative, and control beliefs. These beliefs inform a person’s intentions, which later translate to the behavior they practice in their daily lives. Thus, preventive health behaviors are significant to the public since it helps in containing diseases from having a severe impact on the people within the environment in which they might occur.
Moreover, preventive health behavior helps people to undertake early detection and primary prevention measures that allow them to shield themselves from the emergence of any disease within the population. Notably, primary prevention behaviors aim to prevent the incidences of disease and the number of incidences that occur within a given time frame. Thus, preventive health behaviors are significant to the public to reduce the impact that emergence can cause on the available resources used in disease management, the rate of mortality, and the severity of the disease when it mutates to a fatal form (Keren et al., 2021). Further, preventive health behaviors enable the public to be vigilant and detect the emergence of a disease at an early stage. Preventive health behaviors will allow people to observe the abnormalities within their environment, exposing them to disease-causing organisms. Therefore, preventive health behaviors allow the public to manage health as their responsibility that will reduce incidences, the severity of diseases when they occur, and the strain of health resources available for managing illnesses and improving quality and access to healthcare.
How preventive health care is relevant to the course of study.
However, preventive health behavior is relevant to the health behavior course because it allows people to learn how to manage their daily livelihood to prevent occurrences of diseases within their niche. The behavior will help build on the body of knowledge of the preventive measures that are in place that help in public health and reduce morbidity. Preventive health behaviors are significant to the health behavior course since it helps train healthcare providers in helping inform the public of the need to adopt behaviors that would ensure reduced morbidity within their environments (Han et al., 2021). The behavior will help the course develop health education materials relevant to informing the public of the practices that would ensure they prevent the prevalence of a disease among them. Some issues can be used for health education arising from preventive health behaviors; they include managing personal hygiene, early reporting of diseases, and personal practices such as eating healthy. Exercising and sleeping also build on a person’s immunity and reduce their incidences of becoming sick.
The health behavior paper will focus on preventive health behaviors based on their background, theories and models, application of the models and theories, and recommendations of its applicability and future opportunities that can be tapped to improve the behavior. The main issues covered in the background of preventive health behaviors are perceived severity and perceived vulnerability as factors contributing to the health behavior, perceived benefits of preventing self from diseases, self-efficacy, and perceived barriers and protection motivation (Keren et al., 2021). The theories and models that will inform health behaviors are the protection motivation theory, health belief model, theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior, and integrative model. Hence, the recommendations from the study are based on the need for people to undertake preventive measures to protect themselves from factors that expose them to diseases. Moreover, being aware of the resource strain used to offer healthcare services and the role of the public in helping to mitigate the occurrences of diseases and morbidity.
Health Behavior Background
Preventive Health Behavior Effects on the Health Status of Various Groups of People
Preventive health behavior significantly affects the health status of nearly all groups of people. For instance, preventive health behavior affects low socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, the elderly, and children. Preventive health behavior affects the socioeconomic status of people based on the practices that one observes. For example, people with poor preventive health behavior are usually susceptible to disease attacks since they are exposed to factors contributing to infection by a disease-causing organism (Han et al., 2021). These groups of people are constrained mainly by income problems since they spend much of their income to seek health services for health issues that they would be able to mitigate when they had observed preventive health behaviors. Moreover, people who observe preventive health behavior and practices that allow them to avoid being exposed to diseases experience sustainable socioeconomic status. The group of people spends less on expenses that relate to diseases since they are not exposed to diseases and invest minimally in health issues that would be costly to them.
Moreover, racial and ethnic affiliation contribute to a person’s preventive health behaviors. People have cultural and traditional practices that, in some cases, hinder them from observing preventive health practices that would reduce their exposure to disease-causing organisms. For instance, some communities rely on natural remedies for preventative approaches to infections. However, these traditions and cultural approaches do not have evidence that supports their use and would subject an individual to disease attack (Keren et al., 2021). Thus, such practices need to be avoided and medically approached; preventive health practices are observed to ensure that people are not exposed to diseases that can be mitigated through practices that make people resilient to diseases and their immunity stable. However, people with disabilities can be hindered by some of the preventative health behaviors that would ensure they do not get a health complications. Thereby, their preventative health behaviors should reflect their conditions to allow them to be the capacity to overcome health challenges they might be predisposed to and reduce the ability to contract them.
Determinants of Health for Preventive Health Behavior
Some determinants of health that impact preventive health behaviors are education access and quality, economic stability, healthcare access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and social community context. Education access and quality affects preventive health behaviors since educated people are more concerned about their health and seek to live healthy lives to improve their socioeconomic and health welfare (Han et al., 2021). Most educated people are registered for insurance coverage that they use to seek medical checkups to ensure that they are healthy and stable. Such incentives contribute to preventive health behaviors that educated people to undertake to improve their quality of health and life. On the other hand, most people who are not educated are not concerned with preventive health behaviors since they are not exposed to an education on the need to be in good health. They do not consider being healthy as a factor that would contribute to their productivity and improved welfare.
Moreover, the economic stability of a person contributes to their preventive health behaviors since they invest in health services that enable them to stay healthy to improve their productivity and welfare. Economic stability will ensure that a person gets insurance coverage to undertake occasional medical checkups. To ensure they know their health status and identify any health complications they may be exposed to for early diagnosis (Han et al., 2021). Further, access and quality healthcare services impact preventive health behaviors of people since they will seek medication immediately if they observe a health issue that would compromise their health status. Thus, access to quality healthcare will influence people to report any health issues early and observe preventive measures to reduce frequent hospital visits and constrain the available resources.
Additionally, the environment and social community influence the preventive health behaviors that people practice since they are influenced by the factors around the environment in which they exist. Some of the factors include shelter, weather, and biodiversity. These factors allow people to decide on the preventive health behaviors to observe that would support their health status.
Health Behavior Theories and Models
Health Belief Theory(HBT) postulates that the development of health interventions results from the health behavior that people practice. For instance, preventive health behaviors are guided by a person’s belief of the health issues they are exposed to and feel would impact their lives. The theory postulates that preventive health behaviors are perceived susceptibility to a disease, perceived benefits from a health intervention, perceived barriers to health services, perceived severity, and cues to action (Shmueli, 2021). The theory is based on the human responses to a disease based on their belief that they would be affected by a health condition and would seek to observe preventive health behaviors to enable them to overcome the impact they would experience from the infections.
Consequently, the Theory of Reasoned Action(TRA) is often based on the principle of compatibility, where a person will behave based on the factors that they think would impact their health and lifestyle. The theory postulates that people will observe preventive health behaviors based on their observation of the compatibility they will establish with the interventions they deem will ensure they have improved quality of life and welfare (Han et al., 2021). Thus, the principle of compatibility informs that each attitude that people practice and behavior is often based on four elements of; action, target, context, and time. Hence, the principles inform that the correlation between behaviors and attitudes is most significant when these factors are measured simultaneously concerning the elements that affect the intervention compatibility that one will have to practice preventive health behaviors. Thus, the compatibility observation informs that their attitude informs a person’s behavior. Hence, for a person to practice preventive health behaviors, they need to have an attitude toward observing practices that do not expose them to diseases.
Comparison between Health Belief Theory and The Theory of Reasoned Action.
However, these two theories are different since one is based on reasoned actions, TRA. In contrast, the other, HBT, is based on the argument of beliefs as a factor that informs the preventive health practice that a person would practice to ensure they are not exposed to a disease. TRA states that people will have a reasoned thoughts based on their compatibility with the issue they feel would compromise their health. With the four elements of action, target, context, and time, an individual will reason which factors would be compatible with them that would inform their attitude, which forms part of the behavior they would eventually practice (LaCaille, 2020). On the other hand, HBT postulates that the preventive health behaviors that a person will practice will be based on their beliefs which they think will prevent them from illnesses. Some beliefs are motivated by perceived susceptibility to a disease, perceived benefits from a health intervention, perceived barriers to health services, perceived severity, and cues to action.
How Health Belief Theory and The Theory of Reasoned Action are relevant to preventable health behavior.
These theories are relevant to preventable health behavior since they inform the factors that influence the practices one will adopt towards the factors predisposing them to diseases. Health Belief Theory (HBT) is relevant to health behavior since it allows people to understand some of the issues that influence their health behaviors. These factors are perceived susceptibility to a disease, perceived benefits from a health intervention, perceived barriers to health services, perceived severity, and cues to action (LaCaille, 2020). On the other hand, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) offers an understanding of preventive health behavior by outlining the issues that one considers are compatible with them that would inform their attitudes which is the main factor that determines their behaviors.
Moreover, these theories are informative of preventive health behaviors by informing that there are factors that determine the behavior that people practice toward their health. These theories offer a belief and reason view that informs the background in which the behavior originates (Shmueli, 2021). The theories would be influential in determining health interventions that would influence people’s health by allowing them to observe preventive measures that would reduce their exposure to diseases and improve their welfare.
Health Behavior Theory Research Application
Health belief theory enables healthcare providers to use people’s beliefs to ensure they formulate health interventions that would influence people to observe preventive measures that would reduce their exposure to diseases. Some issues that would help healthcare providers develop the interventions are perceived susceptibility to a disease, perceived benefits from a health intervention, perceived barriers to health services, perceived severity, and cues to action (Han et al., 2021). Moreover, the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) would help in patient-centered care by establishing the issues they deem compatible with that would help to formulate interventions that would allow the individuals to practice preventive health behaviors.
The study by Qu et al. 2022 finds out the role of health belief theory in helping show empathy to the Chinese adolescent population to help them recover from the stress due to the emergence of COVID-19. The study finds out that preventive health behavior of showing empathy is based on the belief that the Chinese have empathy, which helps increase the recovery rate among young people. The study found that one of the preventive health behaviors that would reduce the stress level among the Chinese adolescent population is showing empathy to them when exposed to health issues.
Conclusion and Recommendations for Further Study
Preventive health behaviors are essential in helping people avoid being exposed to diseases that would comprise their lives. The theories that are based on preventive health behaviors enable people to have the capacity to develop interventions that would help in reducing exposure of people to diseases. Therefore, preventive health behaviors are essential in reducing the population’s morbidity rate.
Future research should be done on the impact of preventive health behaviors on the quality of health and the motivation to contribute among healthcare providers. Preventive health behaviors can reduce the strain on health resources and motivation among healthcare providers. It is because of reduced sickness incidences that decrease the stress level among the practitioners.
References
Han, Q., Zheng, B., Cristea, M., Agostini, M., Bélanger, J. J., Gützkow, B., … & PsyCorona Collaboration. (2021). Trust in government regarding COVID-19 and its associations with preventive health and prosocial behavior during the pandemic: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study. Psychological medicine, pp. 1-11.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/41AAC4672B74401B6A3DB15E2D24A60C/S0033291721001306a.pdf/trust-in-government-regarding-covid-19-and-its-associations-with-preventive-health-behaviour-and-prosocial-behaviour-during-the-pandemic-a-cross-sectional-and-longitudinal-study.pdf
LaCaille, L. (2020). Theory of reasoned action. Encyclopedia of behavioral medicine, pp. 2231–2234. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_1619
Keren, F., Siddiqui, A. N., Anwar, M. A., Asmi, F., & Ye, Q. (2021). The role of media and scientific self-efficacy explains natives’ and sojourners’ preventive health behavior during a pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, pp. 12, 2446. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.664399/full
Qu, Y., Chen, B. B., Yang, B., & Zhu, Y. (2022). The role of empathy in Chinese adolescents’ preventive health behavior during COVID-19. Journal of Adolescent Health, 70(5), 729-735. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8837903/
Shmueli, L. (2021). The health belief model and the theory of planned behavior model predict the intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine among the general population. BMC Public Health, 21(1), 1-13. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-021-10816-7
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