Chapter 6

Question 1

Influence of lifestyle on life expectancy

Answer 1

Adults who exercise, eat healthy, don’t smoke, and don’t drink too much can expect to live 12 years longer than they otherwise would

Question 2

Health behaviour (and 3 sub-components)

Answer 2

• any activity performed to maintain/improve health
• • Well behaviour: any activity people undertake to maintain or improve current health/avoid illness (ie. Exercise)
• • Symptom-based behaviour: an activity ill people undertake to determine the problem and find a solution (ie. Going to the doctor)
• • Sick-role behaviour: any activity people undertake to treat a health problem (ie. Taking meds prescribed by your doctor) -> depends on what they’ve learned, and their culture

Question 3

Practicing health behaviours

Answer 3

• Women perform more health behaviours than men
• Some people show little consistency in health habits:
• • Often change over time
• • One health habit isn’t necessarily strongly tied to another
• • Health behaviours not predicted from single set of attitudes (ie. Using a seat belt to protect yourself, losing weight to look attractive)

Question 4

3 types of efforts to prevent illness

Answer 4

• behavioural influence (ie. Flossing)
• environmental measures (ie. Adding fluoride to water supplies)
• preventative medical efforts (ie. Going to the dentist)

Question 5

3 levels of illness prevention

Answer 5

• Primary prevention: actions taken to avoid disease or injury (ie. Using a seat belt)
• Secondary prevention: actions are taken to identify and treat an illness or injury early to stop it (ie. Going to doctor and following their prescriptions)
• Tertiary prevention: involves actions to contain damage from disease, prevent disability, and/or rehabilitate (ie. Physical therapy)

Question 6

3 problems with promoting wellness

Answer 6

• factors within the individual
• Interpersonal factors: if one person wants to adopt health habits but others don’t, it can cause conflict and reduce motivation
• Community factors: people more likely to adopt health behaviours if promoted by communities and governments

Question 7

3 problems with promoting wellness: factors within the individual

Answer 7

• Perceiving healthy behaviours as less appealing than unhealthy ones
• Adopting healthy behaviours may involve changing habits/addictions, which is difficult
• Need to have certain knowledge/skills to know which behaviours to adopt
• Need self-efficacy regarding belief to carry out change
• Being sick or taking certain drugs can affect energy levels, which may impact motivation

Question 8

general factors that determine people’s health behaviours

Answer 8

• Genetics (ie. Alcoholism is hereditary)
• Learning (ex. Modelling, positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, extinction – ie. Stopping a behaviour if no positive consequences happen)
• Social, personality, and emotional factors: conscientiousness linked with health behaviours, stressed people engage in less healthy behaviours
• Perception and cognition: severity of symptoms can determine your actions, you need to have correct knowledge to know what to do, unrealistic optimism (many people feel they’re less likely to develop health problems than others - invulnerability)

Question 9

3 models explaining the role of beliefs and intentions in determining health behaviours

Answer 9

• health belief model
• theory of planned behaviour
• stages of change model

Question 10

health belief model

Answer 10

• the likelihood that someone will take preventative action/perform a health behaviour depends on 2 assessments: threat of health problem, and pros/cons of the action
• • 3 factors influence perceived threat: perceived seriousness, perceived susceptibility, cues to action (reminders about potential health problem)

Question 11

theory of planned behaviour

Answer 11

• people decide their intention in advance of most behaviours, and intentions are the best predictors of what people will do
• • What determines intentions?
• – Attitude regarding the behaviour (is it a good thing to do?)
• – Subjective norm (is it socially appropriate?)
• – Perceived behavioural control (will I succeed?)

Question 12

stages of change model

Answer 12

• aka: transtheoretical model
• 5 stages that spiral towards successful change:
• • Precontemplation: not considering changing
• • Contemplation: considering changing, but not ready to take action yet
• • Preparation: ready to change and plan to pursue a goal
• • Action: efforts to change a behaviour
• • Maintenance: maintaining the successful behavioural changes

Question 13

less rational processes that determine health behaviours

Answer 13

• motivated reasoning
• false hope and willingness
• stress

Question 14

less rational processes: motivated reasoning

Answer 14

when preferences/desires influence judgments of new information (leads to faulty logic)

Question 15

less rational processes: false hope and willingness

Answer 15

• False hope: believing without rational basis that you’ll succeed
• Willingness: willingness to engage in a behaviour depends on subjective norms and attitudes, having engaged in that behaviour before, and having a positive image of the type of person who would engage in that behaviour

Question 16

less rational processes: stress

Answer 16

• Conflict theory: cognitive sequence people use in decision-making starts when an event (ex. Threat or opportunity) challenges their current lifestyle
• • Coping with decisional conflict depends on risk, hope, and adequate time
• – These factors produce coping mechanisms like hypervigilance (ie. Seeing risk in current behaviour and in alternatives -> stress) and vigilance (when people see risk in all possibilities but believe they’ll find a better alternative -> lower stress)

Question 17

factors affecting people’s health throughout development/lifespan

Answer 17

• Gestation/infancy: birth defects
• Childhood and adolescence: accidental injury; risky behaviours and car accidents (in adolescence)
• Adulthood and aging: people tend to reduce risky behaviours and practice health behaviours, although certain ones sometimes decline (ex. Exercise)

Question 18

why do women have longer lifespans than men?

Answer 18

• Less physiological reactivity to stress
• estrogen delays heart disease
• men smoke/drink more
• males engage in more risky behaviours
• females more likely to visit doctor
• males have more hazardous work environments

Question 19

How do socio-cultural factors influence health?

Answer 19

• Healthcare systems can influence health (ie. Americans less healthy than Canadians)
• Low-income countries have reduced life expectancies
• Health varies by social class (poorer people less health) and ethnicity (ex. Aboriginals, African Americans, American Indians less healthy)

Question 20

How to promote health?

Answer 20

• Taking a biopsychosocial perspective:
• • Understanding that socio-cultural groups differ in physiological processes
• • Understanding/respecting that socio-cultural groups have different ideas of causes of illnesses and how to treat them
• • Understanding that socio-cultural groups differ in stress they experience, their coping mechanisms, and social support
• Presenting health information at low literacy levels, presenting it in a grassroots, culturally sensitive way with leaders from the community
• Fostering a sense of community belonging

Question 21

5 methods for promoting health

Answer 21

• Providing information: through mass media/advertising, the internet, medical settings
• Featuring info that enhances motivation: providing tailored content (specific to the person) rather than educational appeals (general info), message framing (how you emphasize desirable consequences vs. Negative ones – works differently depending on what behaviour you’re targeting), fear appeals (loss-framed messages inciting fear)
• Motivational learning: counselling designed to help people explore their ambivalence in changing behaviour (includes decisional balance – clients list reasons for and against changing behaviour; and feedback from counsellor)
• Behavioural and cognitive methods: enhancing peoples’ performance of preventative acts by managing its antecedents and consequences (ie. Rewarding healthy behaviour); self-management (teaching people methods they can use on their own)
• Maintaining healthy behaviours: training people to avoid abstinence-violation effect (when you have a lapse and destroy your confidence) and relapses (falling back into undesirable pattern of behaviour)

Question 22

Work-site and community-based wellness programs

Answer 22

• An increasing amount of worksites provide incentives for staff to participate in community-based wellness programs at work (ie. Company-wide education programs)
• Community-based programs designed to reach large numbers of people to improve health (ie. Providing info on social media
• Electronic interventions: online programs to deliver interventions; easily accessible, but high drop-out rate

Question 23

Prevention focusing on HIV/AIDS

Answer 23

• Using basic messages:
• • Avoid/reduce sex outside long-term monogamous partnerships, or use “safer-sex” practices with new partners
• • Not everyone with HIV/AIDS knows they have it or tell their partners
• • Drug users should not share needles
• • Women exposed to the virus should have a blood test and avoid pregnancy if they’re HIV positive
• • Education/prevention campaigns have been effective
• Interventions for socio-cultural groups and women:
• • Heterosexual minority women who were exposed to a safe sex intervention were more likely to use safe-sex practices in the following months

Question 24

Prevention focused on HIV/AIDS: how can programs become more effective?

Answer 24

• Tailoring them to meet the needs of the gender and socio-cultural gap being addressed
• Involving the person’s family in the intervention
• Training people in actual skills for safe-sex and making specific plans to implement them
• Using methods to reduce behaviours (ie. Drinking, drugs) that increase risk of unsafe sex
• Ensure training bolsters self-efficacy
• Use experts who are similar (in ethnicity, gender, etc) to participants or respected community leaders to lead program
• Encourage infected individuals to disclose status to partners
• Use techniques to reduce non-rational influences in sexual decisions

Question 25

Leading causes of death in developed countries

Answer 25

• malignancies (ex. cancer)

- Heart disease

Question 26

Empathetic responding

Answer 26

in the wake of the SARS outbreak, researchers found that empathetic responding (trying to understand what others are feeling and offering support to them in stressful times) was a behavioural response that was important to maintaining health (along with perceived threat)