Chapter 4

Things that affect health

Socioeconomic Status: measures that are related to income. This could be:

family income

Culture: helps people make decisions about health

personal/parent education level

personal/parents professional status

Example: diets and interventions for illness

Religion: certain practices are encouraged or not for different health issues

Often seen with behaviors such as condom use, tobacco use and vaccination

Social Determinant: conditions you live in and the systems put in place that affect health. The 10 Categories are:

  1. Social Status: value is placed on certain characteristics depending on where you live
  1. Social Support: having a network of people to support you or not can affect health
  1. Food: lack of access to healthy food due to location or socioeconomic status can be detrimental to health
  1. Housing: not having affordable housing can lead to homelessness which contributes to malnutrition and lack of medical care
  1. Education: the level of education received can influence your health
  1. Work: employment historically has lead to better health
  1. Stress: stress can lead to a physical response from the body, increasing risk for certain chronic diseases
  1. Transportation: relying on cars can decrease physical activity levels
  1. Place: your zipcode is one of the biggest predictors of health
  1. Access to Services: the more access you have, the better health outcomes you are likely to experience

The Type of Factors for Health

Downstream: this is focused on the individual and can be changed with individual interventions

Mainstream: focuses on the connection between individual and group levels and requires focus at the group level

Upstream: only focuses on the bigger picture within policies and structures, the more broad factors

How we Explain Health

Theories: sets of concepts that relate to one another and give an overview of relationships in order to predict what is going to happen in regards to a health behavior

Models: multiple ideas and concepts taken from theories and applied to specific settings and issues.

The 3 Levels of Influence for Theories and Models

Intrapersonal: focusing on specific things within the individual

Interpersonal: focuses on relationships and the influence of others on health behaviors

Population and Community: focusing on the bigger structures and policies

Health Belief Model

Stages of Change Model: also known as the Transtheoretical Model

Modifying Variables, Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Benefits, Perceived Severity, Perceived Barriers, Cues to Action, Self Efficacy

Theory of Planned Behavior: driven by the attitude of the person

Focuses on stages of change instead of things changing all at once

Social Cognitive Theory: interaction between individual characteristics and social influences

Diffusion of Innovation: describes how an idea is introduced to and adopted by a certain population