HEALTH
AND
BEHAVIOUR
VEENA YESUDAS
M.Ed
Behavior- is an action that has specific frequency,
duration, and purpose, whether conscious or
unconscious,
What is
behavior ?
It is both the act and the way we act.
Action – drinking/smoking To say a person has
drinking/smoking behavior
Duration –is it for a week/month?
Frequency- how it is repeated?
Purpose –is he/she doing consciously or not
What is behavior ?
Behavior can be conscious or unconscious, overt or covert,
and voluntary or involuntary.
Human behavior is influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions,
values, ethics, authority, rapport(relationship),
persuasion(influence), coercion and/or genetics.
 The acceptability of behavior is evaluated relative to social
norms and regulated by various means of social control.
Healthy Behaviour
Definition:
Healthy behaviour-is an action that healthy people undertake to keep themselves or others
healthy and prevent disease.
Healthy behavior aimed to prevent disease
Health behaviour is any activity undertaken by a person believing him/herself to be healthy
for the purpose of preventing disease or detecting it at an early stage.
Life style, Customs and Traditions are different elements
affecting the healthy behaviour….
Life style: refers to the collection of behaviors that make up a
person’s way of life-including diet, clothing, family life, housing
and work.
Customs: It represents the group behavior. It is the pattern of action
shared by some or all members of the society.
Traditions: are behaviors that have been carried out for a long time
and handed down from parents to children.
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DIFFERENT HEALTH BEHAVIOURS
 Utilization behavior: - utilization of health services such as antenatal care, child
health, immunization, family planning…etc
 Illness behavior: - recognition of early symptoms and prompt self referral for
treatment.
 Compliance behavior: - following a course of prescribed drugs such as for
tuberculosis.
 Rehabilitation behavior: - what people need to do after a serious illness to prevent
further disability
DIFFERENT HEALTH BEHAVIOURS……
 Well/healthy behavior can promote health
Eg. Physical exercise, BF, seeking treatment
 Ill/unhealthy behavior can harm health
Eg. Smoking, chat chewing, excessive alcohol consumption, unsafe
sex , sedentary life style etc.
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• The focus is in various health behaviours running from health
enhancing behaviours like: regular exercise, screening, healthy
eating etc. to health harming behaviours like: smoking, alcohol
and drug abuse, and sick role behaviours such as noncompliance with medical regimens
 The study of health behaviour is based upon two assumptions:
 a substantial proportion of mortality and morbidity is caused due
to a particular pattern of behaviour and that these behaviour
patterns are modifiable.
 It is recognized that individuals are the major
producers/contributors of their health
Research on health behaviour is based on two main
aims:
 To design interventions to improve such health
compromising behaviours.
 To gain more general understanding of the reason
why individuals perform a variety of behaviours
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Epidemiological studies have revealed the following factors influencing
health behaviour generally…
Broadly these factors are divided in to two.
Intrinsic factors:
Socio-demographic factors, personality, social support, cognition
Extrinsic factors which can be divided into two again as;
 Incentive structures such as: taxing tobacco & alcohol and
subsidizing sporting facilities
 Legal restrictions such as: banning dangerous substances, fining
individuals for not wearing seat belts
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Factors affecting human behavior can be classified into
3 major categories bases upon the influence in our life
Predisposing factors(Cognitive Factors)
 Are antecedents or prior to behavior that provide the
rationale or motivation for the behavior to occur.
 Knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, confidence, values, perceptions.
 These can facilitate or hinder a person`s motivation to change
and can be altered through direct communication
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Enabling factors
(Environmental
Factors)
These are barriers or vehicles created
mainly by societal forces or systems.
Antecedents to behavior that enable a
motivation to be realized
Availability, accessibility of health
resources;
Referrals to appropriate providers
Community, government laws, rules,
priority and commitment to health
Health related skills
Reinforcing
factors
(Behavioural
Factors)
Reinforcing factors are those factors subsequent to
a behavior that provide the continuing reward or
incentives for the behavior to be persistent and
repeated.
 They comprise the different types of feedback and
rewards received after behavior change which may
either encourage or discourage the continuation of
the behavior.
Family, peers, teachers, employers, health
providers, community leaders, decision- makers, self
or others who control rewards.
REINFORCING FACTORS…
• Social benefits such as recognition, appreciation, or admiration;
• physical benefits such as convenience, comfort, relief of discomfort or
pain;
• tangible rewards such as improved appearance, self-respect, or
association with an admired person who demonstrates the behavior are all
reinforcing factors.
Eg 1. The woman does not adopt FP because her husband disapproves.
2. The young man who starts smoking because his friends encourage him
to do so.
Socio-cultural factors affecting Behaviors
1.Knowledge or cognition:
Knowledge often comes from experience/information, from teachers and parents, friends, books, etc. Example,
knowledge about disease transmission and causation.
2. Attitudes (feelings) :
 It is the degree to which the person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behaviour in question.
 A tendency of mind or of relatively constant feeling toward a certain category of objects, persons and
situations.
 Attitudes can be considered as a collection of beliefs that always include an evaluative aspect.
 Reflect our likes and dislikes (can be positive or negative).
 They often come from experience or from people who are close to us (friends, parents, etc.). Knowledge +
Feeling/ sense of like or dislike.
A belief is a conviction that a phenomenon
or object is true or real.
They are usually derived from parents,
grandparents and other people we respect
(accepted as true).
3. Beliefs
 People usually do not know whether they
are true or false and they are often difficult
to change.
Faith, truth, trusts imply belief.
Example : belief of many people that cold
may cause respiratory problems.
The cultural, inter-generational perspectives on matters of
consequence reflect the values people hold.
4. Values
They are the basis justifying one’s actions in moral or ethical
terms.
They are standards most important to us.
Some Values in our community
Being a good mother
having many children/cattle
 Being approved by friends
 masculinity and sexual prowess
 Being attractive to opposite sex
Having beautiful girl friend
 academically success
Being a man of God /Allah
 success in foot ball events
Being modern
 being healthy
5.Skills Skills refer to a person’s ability to perform the tasks that
constitute a health related behavior.
Eg ; giving IV injection
6. Culture The normal forms of behavior, beliefs, values and use of
resources form a pattern or way of life.
7.Lifestyle: Consciously chosen, personal behavior of individuals.
E.g. Urban Vs rural life style
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8. Social Norms –
The influence of social pressure that is perceived by the
beliefs) to perform or not perform a certain behaviour.
9.Perception:
A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
give meaning it.
Perception is a means of acquiring knowledge.
And it is highly subjective
10. Perceived Behavioral Control – the individual’s belief concerning how
easy or difficult performing the behaviour will be.
11. People who are important to us greatly influence our behavior.
Examples: parents, elders, friends, experienced people, highly educated
people, teachers, etc.
12. Resources: facilities, money time, labor services, skills, materials and
their distribution and their location affect behavior.
Example: availability
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 Gender has implications for health across the course of
every person’s life. Gender can influence a person’s
experiences of crises and emergency situations, their
exposure to diseases and their access to healthcare, water,
hygiene and sanitation.
 In most societies, they have lower status and have less
GENDER ROLES
ON HEALTH AND
BEHAVIOUR
control over decision-making about their bodies, in their
intimate relationships, families and communities, exposing
them to violence, coercion and harmful practices.
 Women and girls face high risks of unintended pregnancies,
sexually transmitted infections including HIV, cervical cancer,
malnutrition and depression, amongst others.
 Gender inequality also poses barriers for women and girls to
access health information and critical services, including
restrictions on mobility, lack of decision-making autonomy,
limited access to finances, lower literacy rates and
discriminatory attitudes of healthcare providers.
 Gender diverse people are more likely to experience
violence and coercion, stigma and discrimination, including
from health workers. Data suggests that transgender
individuals experience high levels of mental health illness –
linked to the discrimination and stigma they face from
societies and in healthcare settings.
 Harmful gender norms – including those related to rigid
GENDER ROLES
ON HEALTH AND
BEHAVIOUR
notions of masculinity – affect the health and well-being of
boys and men. For example, notions of masculinity
encourage boys and men to smoke, take sexual and other
health risks, misuse alcohol and not seek help or health care.
 Such gender norms also contribute to boys and men
perpetrating violence against women and girls.
 They also contribute to violence perpetrated against men
including homicide, youth and gang violence, which are
among leading causes of morbidity and mortality among
young men. Harmful masculinities also have grave
implications for men’s mental health.
 Societal expectations and norms around “manhood” lead
GENDER ROLES
ON HEALTH AND
BEHAVIOUR
men to engage in risk-taking behaviors; for example,
being encouraged to have multiple sexual partners. In
addition to affecting men’s health, this also leads to
negative outcomes for women and children due to
increased interpersonal violence, the transmission of
sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended
pregnancy.
 Men’s lack of participation in domestic and care work
adds to the high burden of unpaid care work often
performed by women.
 Changes in behavior can be natural or planned changes.
a) Natural change - our behavior changes all the time. Some
changes take place because of natural events or processes such as
age-sex related behaviors.
E.g. eating clay during pregnancy.
Changes in
behavior
b) Planned change - we make plans to improve our lives or to
survive for that matter and we act accordingly.
Example: plan to stop smoking or drinking, plan to become a
health professional.
 Planned change in behavior can be faster or slower depending on
the response of the acceptor and adapter of the behavior.
 This would enable us to contribute to the understanding
of the variation in the distribution of health across
society.
 It might also indicate for intervention designing to
change health behaviours.
Can we predict and
understand who
performs health
behaviour?
Demographic factors: age (shows a curvilinear
relationship in smoking, where young children and the
elderly not smoking)
 Social factor: parental models and peer influence, and
community values.
 Cognitive factors: knowledge, (the reduction of
smoking in the past 20 yrs) is the result of health
promotion
Health behaviours are associated with a multitude of
health and well being outcomes at the individual and
population levels.
The study of the determinants of health behaviour and
CONCLUSION
interventions to change health behaviours has the
potential to make an important contribution to efforts to
improving health,
The big challenge for social and behavioural research
on health behaviours is to demonstrate how theory
based interventions can produce effective and long
lasting behaviour change that result in real benefits in
terms of morbidity and mortality.
REFERENCE
• www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/gender-and-health
• https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304193514
• https://samples.jblearning.com/0763729671/Chapter_02.pdf
• Health Psychology: Edward.P.Sarafino and Timothy.W.Smith
• Essential Reading on Health Psychology:Jane Ogden