HSH303 Health Promotion : Solution Essays

Question:

Gradually policy makers are keen on the most proficient approach to changing behaviour in populations, but face a lack of clarity on how best to do so. This is aggravated by the increasing recognition that traditional, information based interventions to change behaviour have had modest or no effects. In choosing between interventions, evidence of effectiveness and cost are important considerations on which much research and professional activity has focused. Examples include the development of evidence synthesis methods by the Cochrane Collaboration and the US Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research as well as evidence-based guidelines from sources such as the Guide to Community Preventive Services in the USA and NICE guidelines in the UK (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence). Such activity is aimed at ensuring that evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness are captured in public health policies.

A further consideration for governments in deciding how to intercede to change behaviour is the attitude of the public towards such interventions and the extent to which any interventions are likely to be acceptable. This matters, not only because levels of acceptability may critically affect the effectiveness of the intervention, but also because accountable governments need to be aware of public attitudes if they want to act in the public’s interest while at the same time maximising their own chances of being re-elected.

Answer:

Introduction:

The discussion is true in identifying the importance of behaviour changes, in relation to public health. Research evidences have indicated the need of saving healthcare associated costs, in order to focus more on disease prevention, thereby establishing the discussion. Truthfulness of the discussion can be validated by the fact that increased costs make people refrain themselves from using healthcare facilities in low and middle income countries (Giles et al. 2014).

Furthermore, health behaviours have been found to display a socio-economic gradient that makes the advantaged population display better health outcomes, and longer life expectancy. Thus, the need of bringing about a change in behaviour towards specific pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical interventions is essential to improve the overall health status of all individuals (Ahnquist, Wamala and Lindstrom 2012). Association between poor health and negative behaviour towards interventions therefore confirm the need of bringing about policy regulations that would change acceptance of the interventions (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2007). The fact that this discussion focuses on the importance of considering public attitudes is established by research findings which illustrate the need of identifying the underlying conditions that preceded psychological and social behaviour of an individual towards proposed treatments (Hollands et al. 2013).

Thus, the discussion is accurate in that there is a need address the gap prevalent among socially disadvantaged group, to change their behaviour. This can be attributed to lack of education, resources, and co-existing health and social problems (Peters, De Bruin and Crutzen 2015). Therefore, there is indeed a need to bring about health behaviour change to capitalize on the opportunities that will facilitate addressing health risks of individuals and populations.

References

Ahnquist, J., Wamala, S.P. and Lindstrom, M., 2012. Social determinants of health–a question of social or economic capital? Interaction effects of socioeconomic factors on health outcomes. Social Science & Medicine, 74(6), pp.930-939.

Giles, E.L., Robalino, S., McColl, E., Sniehotta, F.F. and Adams, J., 2014. The effectiveness of financial incentives for health behaviour change: systematic review and meta-analysis. PloS one, 9(3), p.e90347.

Hollands, G.J., Shemilt, I., Marteau, T.M., Jebb, S.A., Kelly, M.P., Nakamura, R., Suhrcke, M. and Ogilvie, D., 2013. Altering micro-environments to change population health behaviour: towards an evidence base for choice architecture interventions. BMC public health, 13(1), p.1218.

Nuffield Council on Bioethics (Great Britain), 2007. Public health: ethical issues. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Retrieved from- https://nuffieldbioethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Public-health-Chapter-3-Policy-process-and-practice.pdf

Peters, G.J.Y., De Bruin, M. and Crutzen, R., 2015. Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler: towards a protocol for accumulating evidence regarding the active content of health behaviour change interventions. Health Psychology Review, 9(1), pp.1-14.

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