BioPsychoSocial Health | By March 19, 2006 | By Shaheen E Lakhan, MS, MEd, PhD, MD | 0 Comments

Theories on Health Behaviors

In behavioral medicine, professionals base their interventions on a few models that attempt to explain people’s health-related behavior: the health belief model, reasoned and planned behavior theory, learning theories/classical conditioning, and social cognitive theory. These models are termed continuum theories, for they aim to recognize variables that influence people’s behavior, and using the sum of variables, how likely the person will engage in a particular behavior (Weinstein, Rothman, & Sutton, 1998). They are often criticized on their narrow focus on outcome behavior of interest (e.g. smoking cession) and its non-inclusion of race, gender, and socioeconomic status — all features known to have a somewhat strong influence on health behavior. Nonetheless, the model dynamics are useful to describe particular types of behavior. Read more →