3.1 Health and human behaviour
Behaviour is an action that has a specific frequency, duration and purpose whether conscious or unconscious. It is what we do and how we act.
People stay healthy or become ill often as a result of their own action or behaviour.
Think about the following behaviours. Which ones do you think are health behaviours?
- Reading a newspaper every day
- Singing while you walk
- Using mosquito nets to protect oneself from mosquito bites
- Planting cassava.
Health behaviours are those personal behaviour patterns, actions and habits that people perform in order to stay healthy, in order to restore their health when they get sick and in order to improve their health status. So, in the above list, using a mosquito net is a health behaviour because it reduces the risk of getting malaria.
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Learning Outcomes for Study Session 3