ASDA: Health Promotion

Question 1

What is meant by primary prevention?

Answer 1

To prevent the onset of disease or injury by reducing exposure to risk factors.

Question 2

What is meant by secondary prevention?

Answer 2

To detect or test a disease at an early stage. This helps prevent progression and potential future complications of the disease.

Question 3

What is meant by tertiary prevention?

Answer 3

Aims to minimise the effects of an established disease.

Question 4

Name the 5 approaches in health promotion action.

Answer 4

1. Medical/preventive
2. Behaviour change
3. Educational
4. Empowerment
5. Social change

Question 5

What is health promotion?

Answer 5

The process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health.

Question 6

Give some examples of primary prevention.

Answer 6

• immunisation
• prevention of contact with environmental risk factors
• reducing risk factors for health related behaviours

Question 7

Give some examples of secondary prevention.

Answer 7

• Screening

- monitoring of risk factors such as bp

Question 8

Name some dilemmas raised by health promotion activities.

Answer 8

• ethics of interfering in people’s lives
• victim blaming
• fallacy of empowerment
• reinforcing negative stereotypes
• unequal distribution of responsibility
• the prevention paradox

Question 9

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

Ethnics of interfering in people’s lives.

Answer 9

There may be potential psychological impacts and people may argue they have the right to choose how they live regardless of the consequences.

Question 10

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

Victim blaming.

Answer 10

Focusing on an individuals behavioue change potentially down plays the impact of wider socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health.

E.g. The affect housing conditions and clean water have.

Question 11

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

Fallacy of empowerment.

Answer 11

Unhealthy lifestyles may not be due to ignorance but rather due to wider socio-economic determinants of health.

Question 12

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

Reinforcing of negative stereotypes.

Answer 12

E.g. Leaflets aimed at HIV prevention are sometimes only aimed at gay men or drug users. This promotes the idea they are the only ones at risk and that they only have themselves to blame for their situation.

Question 13

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

Unequal distribution of responsibility.

Answer 13

E.g. Healthy eating of a family is often left up to the mums.

This is bad as it isolates other genders.

Question 14

Describe why the following may be considered a dilemma raised by health promotion activity:

The prevention paradox.

Answer 14

Interventions that makes a difference at a population level might not have much of an effect on an individual.

This links into lay beliefs, as if someone doesn’t see themselves as a candidate they may not take on board the health promotion message.

Question 15

Describe the difficulties of evaluating outcomes of health promotion.

Answer 15

• possible lag time to effect
• many potential intervening or concurrent confounding factors
• high cost of evaluation research