Health, Health Promotion, and Diversity

Health, Health Promotion, and Diversity

What is health?

Health is the mental and physical condition of being free from disease or infirmity. Health is centered on the presence or absence of physical impairments to routine physical, physiological, and psychological functions (Northwood, Ploeg Markle‐Reid & Sherifali, 2018, p. 47). The physical impairments that may hinder health include pain, infection, and deformity. The World Health Organization(WHO) defines health as the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being of an individual. The WHO definition considers health as the state of being free from physical and socio-psychological stressors (Gil-Girbau et al. 2019). Health, in this aspect, is also the ability to recover from disease, injury, and infirmity to lead a more productive life.

Diversity and Determinants of Health

American society comprises individuals drawn from diverse races and cultures. This makes America a racially and socially diverse community. Appending value to this diversity fosters inclusion and social harmony in the country.

Food, air, and water are the most important determinants of good health. Our bodies need these three ingredients to be in a state of proper physical function (Northwood et al. 2018, p. 53). The quality of these three elements determines the quality of health for people.

Health Promotion Theories

The theories of health promotion include Pender’s Model, the Health Belief Model, the Theory of Reasoned Action, and the Transtheoretical Model. The Health Promotion Model, proposed by Nola J. Pender in 1982, explores the interactions of persons with the environment in pursuit of health (Bottiani, Heilbrun & Bradshaw, 2019). The model focuses on individual characteristics and behaviors. Unique characters and behaviors affect their actions and decisions in seeking health. The model aims to entrench health-promoting practices.

This model makes four significant assumptions. First, Pender assumes that individuals seek to regulate their behaviors actively. Secondly, individuals interact fully with the environment and transform their environment. The environment simultaneously processes the individual (Gil-Girbau et al. 2019). The third assumption is that health professionals form part of the environment, which modulates individual health behaviors. Finally, the theory assumes that self-initiated change of person-environment interactions is vital to behavior changes.

The second model is the Health Belief Model, proposed in the early 1950s by American social scientists at the U.S. Public Health Service. This is the most widely used model. The Health Belief Model emphasizes on two primary components of health-related behaviors: the desire to avoid illness or recover from illness, and the belief that specific actions help prevent or treat diseases (Bottiani et al., 2019). The theory is based on six constructs, namely susceptibility to illness, perceived severity of illness, perceived benefits of preventive and curative actions, perceived obstacles to health, cue to act, and self-efficacy in health promotion. The belief model focuses on the individual beliefs and perceptions of various aspects of health and health promotion (Gil-Girbau et al. 2019). The major weakness of this model is that it narrowly considers the person and illness or disease only. The theory does not consider other co-variants of health, such as individual habits and environmental factors (Bottiani et al., 2019). It is mostly descriptive, rather than an explanatory model of health promotion.

The Theory of Reasoned Action suggests that a person’s health behavior is influenced by their intention to indulge in the given behavior. According to this theory, behavioral intents are determined by individual attitudes and subjective views of behavior (Gil-Girbau et al. 2019). This theory, therefore, provides an insight into the reasons why people prefer certain health promotion behaviors over others. The fourth theory of health promotion is the Transtheoretical Theory, a model of intentional change that focuses on individual decisions to change their health promotion behaviors. The theory assumes and asserts that a shift in behavior is not spontaneous and decisive. Instead, change of behaviors occurs gradually over time in a cycle. This model incorporates many theories across the six stages of the behavior change cycle (Bottiani et al., 2019). The steps include pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.

References

Bottiani, J. H., Heilbrun, A., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2019). Models of health promotion and preventive intervention. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-36942-004

Gil-Girbau, M., Pons-Vigués, M., Rubio-Valera, M., Murrugarra, G., Masluk, B., Rodríguez-Martín, B., … & Martínez, C. (2019). Theoretical models of health promotion in primary healthcare everyday practice. Gaceta sanitaria. Retrieved from https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/31753510

Northwood, M., Ploeg, J., Markle‐Reid, M., & Sherifali, D. (2018). Integrative review of the social determinants of health in older adults with multimorbidity. Journal of advanced nursing, 74(1), 45-60. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jan.13408