HLTA02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Health Belief Model, Trans Fat, Health Promotion
Chapter 6: Health Psychology
Warwick et al.!
What is Health Psychology?
ā¢Psychology, speciļ¬cally health psychology, can help us understand what is involved in
behaviour and behaviour change and therefore to design appropriate interventions in order
to enable people to take control of their health with a view to maximize health gain!
ā¢Plethora of evidence linking diļ¬erent types of behaviour to health and illness experience !
ā¢i.e. smoking habit is now strongly linked to lung cancer !
ā¢Focus on behaviours and health originates in the assumptions that behaviour is closely links
to health and that behaviour can be changed or modiļ¬ed in some way (in order to improve
health)āclearly not the case otherwise we wouldnāt be facing the public health challenges
we currently are !
ā¢Health psychology can oļ¬er insight into the way that people think and behave through the
development of theory and through research !
ā¢HP is a branch of psychology speciļ¬cally concerned with the study of mental processes and
behaviour in relation to health and illness!
ā¢HP is a sub disciple of psychology as well as non-psychological disciplines such as
medicine and sociology !
ā¢Relatively new area within psychology!
Health Behaviour
ā¢HP is concerned with health behaviour!
ā¢Some argue that health behaviour is any behaviour that impacts on health in some way!
ā¢Also use this term to refer to behaviours that are undertaken to improve or maintain health!
ā¢Health behaviour can be distinguished in diļ¬erent ways!
ā¢Saraļ¬noāidentiļ¬es health protective behaviourāwhich refers to any behaviour that
protects health status !
ā¢I.e wearing a seatbelt !
ā¢HB may have a negative or positive impact on health and the judgement of this often
depends on the perspective of the person engaged in the behaviour, or the person
observing it, as well as subjective ideas about health and levels of health related
knowledge/ understanding !
ā¢Behaviours that promote or enhance health might be deļ¬ned as those that have a positive
impact on health !
ā¢Some examples of health-enhancing behaviours are: wearing a seatbelt, regular physical
activity, eating healthy and taking up screening opportunities !
ā¢Screeningā process by which tests are used to detect illnesses. There can be blood tests
to detect malaria or x-rays and scans to detect certain types of cancer (cervical) !
ā¢There is evidence to show that a certain set of behaviours increase health and longevity !
ā¢One of the challenges in health promotion os encouraging people to take on or increase
health enhancing behaviours !
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