Summary of Study Session 3

In Study Session 3, you have learned that:

1. 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 actions or behaviour. One such example is using mosquito nets at night to protect oneself from mosquito bites.
2. Preventive health behaviours are actions that healthy people undertake to keep themselves or others healthy. Examples include good nutrition and exclusive breastfeeding until the age of six months. Illness behaviours include any activities undertaken by an individual who perceives him or herself to be ill. Compliance behaviours are to do with following a course of prescribed treatment regimes. Utilisation behaviours involve the utilisation of health services such as antenatal care or family planning. Rehabilitation behaviours are the ways that people behave after a serious illness to get themselves better again.
3. Determinants of health are the biological, environmental, behavioural, organisational, political and social factors that contribute either positively or negatively to the health status of individuals, groups and communities.
4. Risk factors are those inherited, environmental and behavioural influences which are known or thought to increase the likelihood of physical or mental health problems. Risk factors increase the probability of morbidity and premature mortality, but do not guarantee that people with the risk factors will suffer the consequences.
5. Modifiable (changeable or controllable) risk factors are things that individuals can change and control — such as sedentary life style, smoking or poor dietary habits. Non-modifiable (non-changeable or non-controllable) risk factors include factors such as age, sex and inherited genes — things that individuals cannot change or do not have control over.
6. The chain of infection model is a model used to explain the spread of a communicable disease from one host to another. Individuals can break the chain (reduce the risk) at any point, thus the spread of the disease can be stopped. Health education can help to create programmes that are aimed at breaking the chain and reducing the risks.
7. The communicable disease model shows that communicable disease transmission occurs when a susceptible host and an infectious agent exist in an environment suitable for disease transmission. According to the communicable disease model the role of health education and health promotion in reducing the occurrence and transmission of diseases will be by reducing the susceptibility of hosts, destroying infectious agents, reducing the contact between the host and the agent and through modifying the environment so that it is not conducive for disease transmission.
8. With regard to the non-communicable disease model, health education activities will be able to provide programmes to help people reduce the risk of disease by controlling as many of their multi-causative risk factors as possible.