The bases of targeting behavior in health promotion and disease prevention

Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier B.V..

OBJECTIVE: Health behaviors shape more than 30% of one's physical and mental health, as well as overall well-being. Yet, changing behavior is difficult. This paper aims first at operationalizing the concept of health behavior by focusing on its main components and determinants. Second, it gives insights into how to influence health behavior by providing an overview of some of the most commonly used approaches to the design of behavioral interventions.

METHODS: This is a position paper that presents a selection of evidence-based theories, models and approaches to understand and address behavior.

RESULTS: A health behavior broadly refers to every individual action affecting health, disease, disability, or mortality. Behavior is shaped by factors within the skin (biological, psychological) and outside the skin (interpersonal, environmental, policy). Behavior change has therefore to be addressed from an ecological perspective. Specifically, behavior change can be influenced by changing capability, opportunity and motivation. Depending on the specific determinants of the behavior at stake, there are numerous approaches that can be taken. The main steps to design interventions are: defining the problem, selecting and analyzing the target audience, setting objectives, designing the intervention, planning and implementing an evaluation.

CONCLUSION: Behaviors should not be targeted in isolation but within a socio-ecological approach that accounts for both their individual and environmental determinants.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: This paper provides practitioners with the bases of behavior change. It offers a road-map of the main factors to consider and shows how to address behavior by planning an intervention in all its main steps.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2020

Enthalten in:

Patient education and counseling - (2020) vom: 05. Sept.

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Rubinelli, Sara [VerfasserIn]
Diviani, Nicola [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Behavior change
Disease prevention
Health behavior
Health promotion
Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 22.02.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status Publisher

doi:

10.1016/j.pec.2020.08.043

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM315056959