Week 2 - Health Behaviour Flashcards
What is health behaviour as defined by Karl & Cobb (1966)?
“An activity undertaken by a person believing themselves to be healthy for the purposes of preventing disease or detecting it at an asymptomatic stage.” Influenced by medical perspective and asssumes healthy people engage in particular behaviour, e.g. exercise or seeking medical health, purely to prevent the onset of disease.
What is health behaviour as defined by Harris & Guten (1979)?
“Behaviour performed by an individual, regardless of his/her perceived health status, with the purpose of protecting, promoting, or maintaining his/her (their) health.” One of the most dominant definitions of health behaviour. Health behaviour does not just relate to healthy people but could relate to / include behaviour of ‘unhealthy’ people - e.g., someone with heart disease could begin to engage in healthy behaviours with goal of slowing down disease and not just healthy people for preventative reasons…
How was health behaviour further defined by Matarazzo (1984)?
Behavioural pathogen is a behaviour thought to be damaging to health. Behavioural immunogen is a behaviour considered to be protective.
How does WHO (2009) define a health risk?
A factor that raises the probability of adverse health outcomes; Many of these risks are behavioural, though some are environmental e.g. pollution or poverty
What were the findings of the longitudinal Alameda County Study (Belloc & Breslow, 1972; Breslow, 1983)?
Followed 7000 healthy adults for < 15 years. Over time, they were able to look at the factors associated with morbidity (ill health) and mortality (death). Established the idea of the ‘Alameda seven’ behaviours. Men and women who performed 6 out of 7 behaviours lived 7 and 11 years longer (significant) than those who engaged in less than 6. Effects of performing these behaviours are multiplicative and cumulative. Association between not performing behaviours and death increased in a linear relationship with cumulative effects as you age. Overall, contributed greatly to our understanding of relationships between personal lifestyle behaviour and disease.
What were the Alameda seven?
Sleeping 7/8 hours per night, not smoking, drinking no more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day, regular exercise, not eating between meals, eating breakfast, being no more than 10% overweight. In later analyses, no snacking and not eating breakfast were not related to mortality.
True or false: Males typically have a longer life expectancy than females.
False. Females typically have a longer life expectancy than men. However, this gap is closing… likely because women are engaging in greater risk behaviours.
Why is there such a difference in life expectancy in some countries?
These cultural variations can be explained to a large extent by political and environmental challenges, for example years of war or famine in some African countries, and in Mozambique, high HIV prevalence. Differences in lifestyle and behaviours also play a role.
According to ONS (2017), the gains in life expectancy achieved every decade within EU countries have been slowing since around 2011, with decreases seen in __ EU countries by 2015, including UK, France, Germany and Italy. In Wales there has been a ____ decline in life expectancy for both sexes since 2010.
19, 0.1-year
What are the top ten risk factors that account for 1/3 deaths world-wide according to the World Health Report (2020)?
Being underweight (1st in low incoming ranking); unprotected sexual intercourse; high blood pressure (1st in middle income ranking); tobacco consumption (1st in high income ranking); alcohol consumption; unsafe water, poor sanitation, hygiene; physical inactivity; indoor smoke from solid fuels; high cholesterol; and obesity (3rd in middle and high income ranking).
Child mortality rates in developing nations
Over 2 million childhood deaths due to being underweight
Mortality rates in developed nations
Almost 2 million deaths due to obesity-related diseases in North America/Europe
What is mortality?
Number of deaths in a given population/year ascribed to a certain condition
Worldwide in 2019, what causes of death (all ages) accounted for over 44% of global deaths and 60% of all EU deaths?
Circulatory disease (heart disease and stroke) and other non-communicable disease (respiratory conditions such as lung cancers and COPD, kidney disease, dementia, and diabetes).
What communicable diseases have decreasing global mortality rates, likely due to advances in healthcare?
Lower respiratory infections (most lethal), neonatal conditions, diarrhoeal disease, HIV/AIDS.
What is the percentage decrease in global mortality rates of HIV/AIDS in the last 20 years?
51% decrease, moving from the world’s 8th leading cause of death in 2000 to the 19th in 2019.
What condition entered the global top 10 leading causes of death (all ages) for the first time in 2019?
Diabetes, this can largely be attributed to obesity.
According to WHO (2018), while the risk of dying from non-communicable disease such as cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes, or cancer has decreased since 2000, an estimated _____ people under the age of 70 still died due to these diseases in 2016. These diseases accounted for ____ of all deaths.
13 million, 71%
With the exception of ________, _____ does not appear in the top ten causes of death globally, however, within more developed countries including Australia, USA, and the EU it is consistently placed in the top five causes of death.
Lung cancer, cancer
EU figures attribute approximately ___ of all deaths to cancer in 2017 (___ of female, ___ of male deaths, OECD 2018), predominantly.
26%, 23%, 29%
What is the health behaviour associated with heart disease?
Smoking, high cholesterol, lack of exercise
What is the health behaviour associated with cancer?
Smoking, alcohol, diet, sexual behaviour. Does depend on the cancer, e.g. diet of a fiber intake is associated with colorectal cancer while diet of a fatty intake is associated with breast cancer.
What is the health behaviour associated with stroke?
Smoking, high cholesterol, alcohol
What is the health behaviour associated with pneumonia/influenza?
Smoking, lack of vaccination
What is the health behaviour associated with HIV/AIDS?
Unsafe/unprotected sexual intercourse
With the exception of _____, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and pneumonia/influenza are more common in ______ people.
HIV/AIDS, middle aged
What are some examples of health-risk behaviour?
Unhealthy diet, obesity, alcohol consumption (decreasing in younger generations), drug use (on the rise in younger generations), smoking, unprotected sexual behaviour, excessive exposure to sun/skin tanning
What percentage of cancer deaths are associated with smoking?
30%
What percentage of cancer deaths are attributable in some way to poor diet (low fibre, high fat, high salt)?
35%
What does normal cholesterol do for our body?
Useful in production of bile necessary for digestion and steroid hormone production
What kind of diet elevates cholesterol levels?
Fatty diet since foods high in saturated fats (animal products and some vegetable oils) contain lipoproteins.
What does bad cholesterol do in our bodies?
When circulating in the blood stream, Low Density Lipoproteins (LDLs) can form plaques which can cause occlusions that slow blood flow and form clots in our arteries. This can lead to arterial disease that can develop into coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart attacks.
What foods are high in HDLs? What do HDLs do for our body?
Omega 3 fatty acid foods such as oily fish (sardines, mackerel) and Mediterranean foods have High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs) known as ‘good cholesterol’ that help liver function removal of LDLs.
What did the Neaton et al. (1992) study find about excessive fat intake in diet?
Followed 350,000 adults over 6 years and found that high cholesterol from excessive fat intake positively related to heart disease/stroke.
