L13: Social Factors in health promotion Flashcards
How did health promotion come about?
Public health developed to change the physical environment
Health education→ targeted individual behaviour
Health promotion→ broader approach which includes education and public health→ targets everyone and includes political and social side
What are the different types of health promotion?
Medical or preventive Behaviour change Educational Empowerment Social change
What is the medical or preventive approach?
Inform doctors and patients about the link between behaviour and disease
What is the behaviour change approach?
Change activitities/ belief and approaches to it
For doctors and patients
What is the education approach?
Educate why we should change
Teach about the negative side of behaviour
Educate how we can change
What is the empowerment approach?
Encourage people, make them feel like they are actually achieving it
Give them an incentive
Make them see that it is possible
What is the social change approach?
Change peoples opinions
Social pressure and influence
Add a legal aspect→ enforce a social pressure
How is health promotion viewed from a sociological perspective?
3 different viewpoints
Structural critiques
Surveillance critiques
Consumption critiques
What is a structural critiques view?
Material conditions (e.g. economic wellbeing) that give rise to ill health are marginalised Focus on individual responsibility which may miss the point→ not everyone has the same access to things
What is a surveillance critiques view?
Monitoring and regulating the population
Is it ethically correct?
Should we limit treatment to those who don’t change behaviour?
Don’t have to be healthy if people don’t want to
What is the consumption critiques view?
Lifestyle choice not just seen as health ‘risk’ but also tied up with identity
Make choices on how we want to be identified as
What are some on the dilemmas around health promotion?
Should we interfere with peoples lives?
Potential psychological impact of health promotion?
Rights and choices?
Who’s ‘fault’ is poor health?
- Promotion often focuses on individual behaviour change–> blame the individual
- Structural and socio-economic changes are not often factor in
- Plays down the impact of wider socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health
- All influence the perceptions individuals have of their health and the choices they make
What is mistaken belief about empowerment?
Giving generic information does not automatically give them power to act on healthier choices
Unhealthy lifestyles not normally due to ignorance but due to adverse circumstances and wider socio-economic determinants of health → not always able to opt for the ‘healthier/ better’ choice
How can health promotion reinforce negative sterotypes?
Associates certain behaviours with certain groups or conditions
e.g. HIV prevention in drug users →blames drug users for HIV, why are they sharing needles? why are they using drugs? etc… doesn’t look at what made them start using drugs