Session 5 - Lay beliefs; Health Promotion

Question 1

What three things can lay beliefs have an impact on?

Answer 1

o Impact on health behaviour
o Impact on illness behaviour
o Impact on compliance/non-compliance (adherence) with treatment

Question 2

Give three types of people and their response to health problems

Answer 2

o Deniers – “I don’t have asthma”
o Distancers – “I don’t have proper asthma”
o Pragmatists – Only use preventative medication when asthma was bad

Question 3

What is a lay belief?

Answer 3

o Constructed by people to understand and make sense of areas in their lives about which they have no specialised knowledge

Question 4

What is the danger of a lay belief?

Answer 4

o Medical information may be rejected if it is incompatible with competing ideas for which people consider there is good evidence
 E.g. accepted that smoking causes lung cancer, but not cervical as people don’t understand the link therefore do not believe

Question 5

What is lay epidemiology?

Answer 5

An attempt to under why and how illness happens

- Combination of sources (person, familial and social)

Question 6

What does lay epidemiology seek to explain?

Answer 6

Why things happened to a particular person at a particular time

Question 7

What happens when lay epidemiology does not fit?

Answer 7

Randomness and fate to blame

Question 8

Give three different perceptions of health

Answer 8

Negative definition
Functional definition
Positive definition

Question 9

What is a negative definition of health?

Answer 9

 Health is the absence of illness

 More commonly held belief in lower socioeconomic groups

Question 10

What is a functional definition of health?

Answer 10

Health is the ability to do certain things

Question 11

What is a positive definition of health?

Answer 11

 Health is a state of wellbeing and fitness

 More commonly held belief in higher socioeconomic groups

Question 12

What is health behaviour?

Answer 12

o Activity undertaken for the purpose of maintaining health and preventing illness

Question 13

What is illness behaviour?

Answer 13

o Activity of ill person to define illness and seek solution

Question 14

What is lay care?

Answer 14

Use of over the counter medications

Question 15

What is the ilness iceberg?

Answer 15

 Most symptoms never get to a doctor – The ‘Symptom/Illness Iceberg’

Question 16

What is sick role behaviour?

Answer 16

o Formal response to symptoms, including seeking professional help.

Question 17

What is the lay referral system?

Answer 17

o Up to 75% of those visiting a doctor have discussed their symptoms with another person.
o The Lay Referral System is the chain of advice-seeking contacts which the sick make with other lay people prior to (or instead of) seeking help from health care professionals.

Question 18

What is a healthcare determinant?

Answer 18

Determinants of health are a range of factors that have a powering and cumulative effect on the health of the population, because they shape behaviours and environmental risk factors

Question 19

Give four health care determinants

Answer 19

o Poverty
o Social Exclusion
o Poor Housing
o Poor health systems

Question 20

What is primary prevention?

Answer 20

o Aims to prevent the onset of disease or injury
o Reduce exposure to risk factors
 Immunisation
 Quitting smoking

Question 21

What is secondary prevention?

Answer 21

o Aims to detect and treat a disease (or its risk factors) at an early stage
o Prevent progression
 Monitoring blood pressure
 Screening for cervical cancer

Question 22

What is tertiary prevention?

Answer 22

o Aims to minimise effects of established disease
 Steroids for asthma
 β-Blockers for high blood pressure
 Renal transplants for renal failure

Question 23

Give five health promotion strategies

Answer 23

o	Medical or Preventive
o	Behaviour Change
o	Educational
o	Empowerment
o	Social Chang

Question 24

Give six dilemmas of health promotion

Answer 24

Ethics of interfering in peoples lives
Victim blaming
Mistaken belief that giving people information gives them the power to change
Reinforcing of negative sterotypes
Unequal distribution of responsibility 
Prevention paradox

Question 25

What s candidacy?

Answer 25

If people don’t see themselves as a ‘candidate’ for a disease they may not take on board the relevant health promotion messages.

Question 26

Give four difficulties of evaluating outcomes of health promotion?

Answer 26

Design of the intervention
Timing
Confounding factors
High cost

Question 27

What are three timing difficulties of evaluating outcomes of health promotion?

Answer 27

o Results may differ depending on when you evaluate
o Decay – Some interventions might take a long time to have effect
o Delay – Some interventions wear off rapidly (e.g. giving up smoking)