EDUcation AND COMMunication CE

HEALTH EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION
FACTORS INFLUENCING HEALTH BEHAVIOUR
In the ecological model health status and behavior are the outcomes of interest (McLeroy, Bibeau,
Steckler & Glanz, 1988, p. 355) and viewed as being determined by the following:
Public policy— Local, state, national, and global laws and policies.
Includes polices that allocate resources to establish and maintain a coalition that serves a
mediating structure connecting individuals and the larger social environment to create a
healthy campus. Other policies include those that restrict behavior such as tobacco use in
public spaces and alcohol sales and consumption and those that provide behavioral
incentives, both positive and negative, such as increased taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.
Additional policies relate to violence, social injustice, green policies, foreign affairs, the
economy, global warming.
Community— Relationships among organizations, institutions, and informational

networks within defined boundaries.
Includes location in the community, built environment, neighborhood associations,

community leaders, on/off-campus housing, businesses (e.g., bars, fast food restaurants,
farmers markets), commuting, parking, transportation, walkability, parks.
Institutional factors— Social institutions with organizational characteristics and formal

(and informal) rules and regulations for operations.
Includes campus climate (tolerance/intolerance), class schedules, financial policies,

competitiveness, lighting, unclean environments, distance to classes and buildings, noise,
availability of study and common lounge spaces, air quality, safety.
Interpersonal processes and primary groups— Formal and informal social networks and
social support systems, including family, work group, and friendship networks.
Includes roommates, supervisors, resident advisors, rituals, customs, traditions, economic

forces, diversity, athletics, recreation, intramural sports, clubs, Greek life.
Intrapersonal factors— Characteristics of the individual such as knowledge, attitudes,

behavior, self-concept, skills, and developmental history.
Includes gender, religious identity, racial/ethnic identity, sexual orientation, economic

status, financial resources, values, goals, expectations, age, genetics, resiliency, coping
skills, time management skills, health literacy and accessing health care skills, stigma of
accessing counseling services.
WHERE HEALTH EDUCATION IS PROVIDED
SCHOOLS: Health behaviour change programs in schools include classroom teaching, teacher
training and changes in school environments that support healthy behaviour.
COMMUNITIES: Draws on social relationships and organizations to reach out to large

populations with media and interpersonal strategies. Enables program planners to gain support and
design suitable health messages and delivery mechanisms. Used in churches, clubs, neighbourhood
to encourage healthful nutrition, reduce risk of CVDs and use peer influence to promote breast
cancer detection among minority women.
WORKSITES: Both source of stress and social support. Effective worksite programs can harness
social support as a buffer to stress, with the goal of improving worker health and health practices.
Used to reduce chronic disease risk factors.
HEALTHCARE SETTINGS: For high risk individuals, patients, their families, and surrounding
community, and in-service training of healthcare providers. Greater emphasis on implementing
health behaviour change and provider focused quality improvement strategies. Use of community
health workers for patients discharged from hospitals is considered as a strategy to reduce
readmission rates.
HOMES: By traditional means such as home visits or through communication channels such as
internet, telephone calls and mails. Strategies like mailed tailored messages and motivational
interviewing by telephone make it possible to reach larger groups and high-risk groups in a
convenient way that reduces barriers to their receiving motivational messages. In-home coaching
that helps people improve their home health environments to support health behaviour change has
also shown promise.
CONSUMER MARKETPLACE: The advent of home-health and self-care products has created
new opportunities for health education but also means of misleading consumers about the potential
health effects of items they can purchase. Social marketing is being used by health educators to
enhance the salience of health messages and improve their persuasive impact. E.g. adding calorie
information to menus and graphic warning labels on cigarette packs.
COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT: Rapid changes in the availability and use of new

information and communication technologies, ranging from mass media changes (online versions of
newspapers) to personalized, mobile and interactive media. Unique, increasingly prominent and
specialized and provide opportunities for interventions as well as evaluation of their reach and
impact on health behaviour.
AUDIENCES FOR HEALTH EDUCATION:

Understanding the target audience’s health, cultural context and social characteristics, their beliefs,
attitudes, values, skills and past behaviours. Audience could be individuals, groups, organizations,
communities, or socio-political entities. Four dimensions along with potential audience could be
characterized:
Socio-demographic characteristics and Ethnic/Racial Background: Linked to health status and
health behaviour, less affluent people experiencing higher morbidity and mortality. Recognition of
diseases and mortality rates across various groups has led to increased efforts to reduce health
disparities. Gender, age, race, marital status, place of residence, employment all play huge role in
health behaviours. These factors are important to understand in order to guide the targeting of
strategies and educational materials and to identify channels and media for reaching consumers.
Health behaviour interventions should be appropriate to educational and reading levels of target
audience and be compatible with their racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Life cycle stage: Health education is provided at every stage of life cycle, from childbirth education
whose beneficiaries are not even born to self-care education and rehabilitation for the very old.
Developmental perspectives help to guide the choice of intervention and research methods.
Children may feel illness is punishment for bad behaviour, knowledge of their cognitive
development helps to provide a framework for understanding these beliefs and ways to respond to
them. Adolescents may feel vulnerable to accidents and chronic diseases. Healthy People 2020
goals stress reaching people in every stage of life, with a special focus on vulnerabilities that may
affect people at various life cycle stages.
Disease and At-Risk Status: Illness may compromise people’s ability to attend to new information
or develop new skills at critical points. Because of this, timing, channel and audiences for patient
education should be carefully considered. Successful patient education depends on a sound
understanding of patient’s view of the world. But sometimes strategies to enable initial changes in
behaviour such as quitting smoking may be insufficient to maintain behaviour change for a long
term.
WHAT IS COMMUNICATION AND TYPES OF COMMUNICATION (PPT)
HEALTH COMMUNICATION DEFINITION, IN 21ST CENTURY, HEALTH

COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT, TYPES(PPT)
STAGES IN HEALTH COMMUNICATION:
Stage 1: Reaching the intended audience
Communication cannot be effective unless it is seen or heard by its intended audience. A common
cause of failure at this stage is ‘preaching to the converted’. An example of this would be if posters
asking people to attend for antenatal care are placed at the clinic itself only, or talks on the subject
are only given at antenatal clinics. These methods only reach the people who are already motivated
to use the service. However the groups you are trying to reach may not attend clinics, nor have
radios or newspapers. They may be busy at the times the health education programmes are
broadcast on the radio. Communication should be directed where people are going to see or hear the
messages. This requires careful study of your intended audience to find out where they might see
posters or what their listening and reading habits are.
Stage 2: Attracting the audience’s attention
Any communication must attract attention, so that people will make the effort to listen or read the
information. Examples of failure at this stage are:
Going past the poster without bothering to look at it.

Not paying attention to the health talk or demonstration at the clinic.
Turning off the radio programme or switching over to another channel.
Stage 3: Understanding the message
Once the person pays attention to a message they will try to understand it. For example, two people
may hear the same radio programme or see the same poster and interpret the message quite
differently from each other — and differently from the meaning intended by the sender. A person’s
interpretation of a communication will depend on many things.
Failure at this stage can take place when:
 Complex language and unfamiliar or technical words are used

 Pictures contain complicated diagrams and distracting details
 Pictures contain unfamiliar or strange subjects
 Too much information is presented and people cannot absorb it at all.
Stage 4: Acceptance of change
A communication should not only be received and understood — it should be believed and
accepted.
It is usually easier to promote a change when its effects can be easily demonstrated. For example,
ventilated improved pit latrines do not smell and will be more accepted by the community because
of this feature.
Stage 5: Producing behaviour change
A communication may result in a change in beliefs and attitudes, but still not influence behaviour or
action. This can happen when the communication has not been aimed at the factor that has most
influence on the person’s behaviour. For example a person may have a favourable attitude and want
to carry out the action, such as using family planning — but some people around may prevent the
person from doing it. Sometimes the person might not have the means (enabling factors) such as
money, skill or availability of services to take action. As a result there will be no behaviour change.
Stage 6: Improvement in health
Improvement in health will only take place if the changed behaviours have been carefully selected
so that they really influence health. If your messages are based on outdated or incorrect ideas,
people could follow your advice — but their health would not improve.

EDUcation AND COMMunication CE

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

EDUcation AND COMMunication CE

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

EDUcation AND COMMunication CE

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

HEALTH EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION

FACTORS INFLUENCING HEALTH BEHAVIOUR

Community— Relationships among organizations, institutions, and informational

Includes location in the community, built environment, neighborhood associations,

Institutional factors— Social institutions with organizational characteristics and formal

Includes campus climate (tolerance/intolerance), class schedules, financial policies,

Includes roommates, supervisors, resident advisors, rituals, customs, traditions, economic

Intrapersonal factors— Characteristics of the individual such as knowledge, attitudes,

Includes gender, religious identity, racial/ethnic identity, sexual orientation, economic

COMMUNITIES: Draws on social relationships and organizations to reach out to large

COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT: Rapid changes in the availability and use of new

AUDIENCES FOR HEALTH EDUCATION:

HEALTH COMMUNICATION DEFINITION, IN 21ST CENTURY, HEALTH

STAGES IN HEALTH COMMUNICATION:

Stage 1: Reaching the intended audience

Stage 2: Attracting the audience’s attention

Going past the poster without bothering to look at it.

Failure at this stage can take place when:

 Complex language and unfamiliar or technical words are used

Stage 4: Acceptance of change

Stage 5: Producing behaviour change

You might also like