2. Course code : 1804316
Course name : Health Education
and Behavioral Science
For : Bachelor of Public Health Program
Credit : 3(3-0-6)
3. Assessment
1. Midterm Examination 35 %
2. Final Examination 35 %
3. Assignment 20 %
4. Class attendance
Assessment : Fix-rate 10 %
From total : 100%
Total 100 %
> 80 A
> 75 – 79
B+
> 70 – 74
B
> 65 – 69
C+
> 60 – 65
C
> 55 – 59
D+ 3
4. Course Objectives
At the completion of the course students should be able to
1. Explain the principles and theories of health education
and behavioral science.
2. Analyse a health behavior in order to identify its
background, causes, and form a strategy to modify it.
3. Apply the principles and theories of health Education
and behavioral Science to develop strategies for the
modification and problem- solving in health behavior of
the population.
5. Course content
Introduction to course and the concept of health
education and behavioral science
Theory in health behavior and health education
Models of Individual health behavior 1
The Health Belief Model (HBM)
Protection Motivation Theory (PMT)
6. Course content
Models of Individual health behavior 2
Theory of Planned Behavior
Theory of Reasoned Action
The Transtheoretical Model and Stages of Change
Models of Interpersonal Health Behavior
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT)
Social network and Social support
7. Course content
Community and group model of health behavior
change: Health Communication
Social Marketing
The methods of health education
The methods of health education
Health education and health promotion in schools.
Health promotion in hospital
Health promotion in community
Health education and health promotion in workplace
Planning, Implementation and evaluate of Health
Education programs
8. At the end of class
students should be able to:
Defined key definitions of health, health education,
behavioral science, health behavior and health
promotion.
List the role of health educator.
Defined terms related to antecedent of health
education and health behavior.
9. Definition of health
The World Health Organization (WHO)
defined health in its broader sense in 1947 as
"a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-
being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity."
10. Definition of health
The limitations of WHO’s definition of health
1. Health is dynamic not a state.
2. The dimensions are in adequate.
3. The definition is subjective.
4. Measurement is difficult.
5. The definition is too ideal and realistic.
6. Health is not an end but a means.
7. The definition lacks a community orientation.
11. Definition of health
The WHO's 1986 Ottawa Charter for Health
Promotion furthered that health is not just a state,
but also "a resource for everyday life, not the objective
of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing
social and personal resources, as well as physical
capacities."
12. The determinants of health.
Income and social status
Social support networks
Education and literacy
Employment/working conditions
Social environments
Physical environments
13. The determinants of health.
Personal health practices and coping skills
Healthy child development
Biology and genetics
Health care services
Gender
Culture
14. Behavior Science
The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the
disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions
among organisms in the natural world.
It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of
human and animal behavior through controlled and
naturalistic observation, and disciplined scientific
experimentation.
15. Behavior Science
It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective
conclusions through rigorous formulations and
observation
Examples of behavioral sciences include
psychology, cognitive science, and anthropology.
16. Behavior
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines behavior as
anything that an organism does involving action and
response to stimulation.
A behavior is any overt action, conscious or
unconscious, with a measurable frequency, intensity,
and duration.
17. Behavior
A behavior is any observable response of a person to a
stimulus or an action that has a “specific frequency,
duration and purpose whether conscious.”
Internal responses such as thinking or feeling may be
inferred from observable behavior.
Behavior may also refer to hoe people react with one
another as well as their environment and can be
considered as a product of heredity, culture and
environment.
18. Behavior
Overt behavior
Overt behavior is any behavior that is observable
by others.
Covert behavior
Covert behavior opposed to covert behavior which is
not observable by others.
19. Any behavior is influenced by factors at five
level.
1. Intrapersonal or Individual factors
Individual characteristics that influence behavior, such
as knowledge, attitudes, belief, and personality traits
2. Interpersonal factors
Interpersonal process and primary groups, including
family, friends and peers that provide social identity,
support, and role definition
20. 3. Institutional or Organizational factors
Rules, regulations, policies and informal structures, which
may constrain or promote recommended behaviors
4. Community factors
Social networks and norms or standards which exist as
formal or informal among individuals, groups, and
organizations.
5. Public policy factors
Local, state and federal policies and laws that regulate or
support healthy actions and practices for disease prevention,
early detection, control and management.
21. Health behavior
The World Health Organization (1998) defines health
behavior as
“ any activities under taken by an individual
regardless of actual or perceived health status, for the
purpose of promoting, protecting or maintaining
health, wheather or not such behavior is objectively
effective toward that end.
22. Health behavior
Gochman (1997) defined health behavior as: “ those
personal attributes such as beliefs, expectation,
motives, values, perceptions and other cognitive
elements; personality characteristics, including
affective and emotional states and traits; and
behavioral patterns, actions, and habits that related to
health maintenance, to health restoration, and to
health improvement.
23. Health behavior
Kasl and Cobb define three catagories of health
behavior as follow :
Preventive health behavior
any activity undertaken by an individual who believes
himself to be healthy for the purpose of preventing or
detecting illness in an asymptomatic state"
24. Health behavior
Illness behavior
Any activity undertaken by an individual who perceives
himself to be ill, to defined the state of health , and to
discover a suitable remedy.
25. Health behavior
Sick-role behavior
Any activity undertaken by an individual who considers
himself to be ill, for the purpose of getting well.
It includes receiving treatment from medical providers,
generally involves a whole range of dependent
behaviors, and leads to some degree of exemption from
one’s usual responsibilities.
26. Risk behavior
Specifics forms of behaviors which are proven to be
associated with increased susceptibility to a specific
disease or ill-health.
WHO 1998
27. Health – directed behaviors
Health – directed behaviors are those behavior
that person consciously pursues for health
improvement or health protection.
Health – related behaviors
Health – related behaviors are those actions that
are performed for reasons other than health but
which have health effects.
29. The definition of health education
Downie, Fyfe and Tannahill (1990) defined it as
“ communication activity aimed at enhancing
positive health and preventing or diminishing ill-
health in individual and groups through influencing
the belief, attitudes and behavior of those with power
and of the community at large.
30. The definition of health education
The World Health Organization (1998) defined health
education as
“comprising consciously constructed opportunities
for learning involving some form of communication
designed to improve health literacy, including
improving knowledge, and developing life skills which
are conductive to individual and community health”
31. The definition of health education
Green and Kreuter (1999) define health education as
“any combination of learning experiences designed to
predispose, enable and reinforce voluntary health
behavior conductive to health in individuals, groups,
or communities.
32. Aims of health education
Motivating people to adopt health-promoting
behaviors by providing appropriate knowledge and
helping to develop positive attitude.
Helping people to make decisions about their health
and acquire the necessary confidence and skills to put
their decisions into practice.
33. Health educator
A health educator is an individual who specializes in
health education through academic preparation and
assists other individuals in making informed decisions
in matters affecting their health.
34. Role of health educator
Assess need, asset and capacity for health education
by variety method such as talking to the people and
listening of their problems.
Plan health education.
Implement health education
Conduct evaluation and research related to health
education
35. Role of health educator
Manage health education
Communicate and advocate for health education
The good health educator must helping people to
look as their ideas so that could see which were the
most useful and simplest to put into practice and
encourage people to choose the idea best suited to
their circumstances that mean health educator must
use the participatory learning with people.
36. The definition of Health promotion
Green and Kreuter (1991) defined health promotion as
“any planned combination of educational, political,
regulatory and organizational supports for actions
and conditions of living conducive to the health of
individuals, groups or communities”
37. The definition of Health promotion
The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (WHO,
1986) defined health promotion as “The process of
enabling people to increase control over, and to
improve their health.”
38. The Ottawa Charter identified five key
action strategies for health promotion :
Building healthy public policy.
Creating supportive environment.
Strengthen community action.
Develope personal skill.
Reorient health services.
39. Terms that related to antecedent of health
education and health behavior
Attitude
Attitude are favorable or unfavorable evaluative reactions
or dispositions toward something, a situation, a person, or
a group, exhibited in one’s beliefs, feelings, or intended
behavior.
An attitude that a person holds toward obesity, for
example, will help to guide or influence behavior
intentions with respect to the problem.
For example: I (dis)like high-fat foods.
40. Awareness
Awareness refers to becoming conscious about an
action, idea, object, person, or situation. An example
of building awareness is a health educator screening a
film about avian flu in a community in which there
have been no cases of avian flu and no one knows
about this disease. However, if people are already
aware of an issue for example, that smoking is
harmful to health there is no need to build awareness
regarding that issue.
41. Belief
Beliefs are convictions that a phenomenon is true
or real.In other words, beliefs are statements of
perceived fact or impressions about the world.
These are neither correct nor incorrect.
For example, a student may enter a classroom
and say that the classroom is big. She may be used to
smaller classrooms, and thus from her perspective the
current classroom seems big.
42. Values
Values are highly esteemed cultural perspectives
or beliefs shared and transmitted among people who
hold a common history or identity. Value are
enduring beliefs or systems of beliefs regarding
whether a specific mode of conduct or end state of
behavior is personally or socially preferable (Rokeach,
1970).
43. Communication
Communication is the process by which message
are transferred through a channel to a receiver and
information is shared with other individuals.
44. Community health
Community health is concerned with health promotion and
education directed at populations rather than individuals,
and involves the science and art of promoting health,
preventing disease and prolonging life through organized
community effort.
45. Culture
Culture is the sum values and traditional ideas transmitted to
individuals in a community over period of time or patterns of
behavior acquired and transmitted by human group.
Culture includes how people behave, think and communicate
their values, attitudes, belief and mores.
46. Education
Education is a complex process of experience influencing the
way people perceived themselves in relation to their social
and physical environments.
It is a purposeful process for expediting learning.
47. Environment
Environment encompasses the physical, social emotional and
spiritual influences of human functioning and behavior,
including animate and inanimate surroundings, and the
external and internal surroundings that influence health and
behavior.
48. Exercises
Explain why personal behaviors are important to
health.
List the top 5 causes of death in Thailand then
explain health behaviors that related to causes of
death.
49. References
E.D. Klemke, R. Hollinger & A.D. Kline.(1980). Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science. Prometheus Books,
New York: Prometheus.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Glanz, K., Rimer, B.K. & Lewis, F.M. (2002). Health Behavior and Health Education. Theory, Research and Practice. San
Fransisco: Wiley & Sons.
Glanz, K., Marcus Lewis, F. & Rimer, B.K. (1997). Theory at a Glance: A Guide for Health Promotion Practice. National
Institute of Health.
Goshman, D. S. (1997). Handbook of health behavior research III: Demography, development, diversity. New York, NY:
Plenum.
Green, L. W., & Kreuter, M. W. (1991). Health promotion planning: An educational and environmental approach.
Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.
Naomi N. Modest. (1996). Dictionary of public health promotion and education: Terms and concept. California: SAGE
Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes. (2001). International encyclopedia of the Social & Behavior Sciences. Oxford:
Elsevier.
