Please provide a 250-word response to the following discussion with at least 1 resource.
Globalization Healthcare Administration
Please provide a 250-word response to the following discussion with at least 1 resource.
When it comes to promoting behavior change for the better health wise can be a complicated situation. In order to change the behavior, there has to be a way in which the people have the ability to get the information/education. One of the perspective is the ecological perspective. This takes “factors that influence behaviors that relate to health…the factors influencing health behaviors occur at several levels…” (Skolnik, pg 173). Taking a situation, the influences of that situation with that person, their perception of that situation and how others might see them can be a massive factor in promoting specific behaviors. For example, if you take a look at the outbreak of the coronavirus and the rise of wearing masks. For many people, (in my opinion) if they see someone wearing a mask, they will automatically assume that person has a contagious disease. Now with COVID 19, we all have a different perspective of wearing masks. Wearing masks is actually a positive change in my opinion because it does prevent sick people (flu, TB, cold, etc.) infecting those that are not sick yet. In many asain countries (Japan, China, S. Korea, etc.), wearing masks is an every day thing.
People wear it if they are sick, feeling like they are going to get sick, for allergies or just for fashion. Adopting this change in the US would be a great thing. From an ecological perspective, using something like that and turning it around and making a positive impact on people’s health and promoting changes is one of the best ways to promote behavior change. “An ecological approach ‘that identifies and addresses the factors influencing behaviour at all three levels is likely to be most effective at bringing about behaviour change.’ This approach also appears to be the most cost-effective,” (Behaviour Change, 2014). I agree with this quote because try as you might, no matter how much push, drive, etc. you want someone to change, if they feel like they are not ready to change, they will not change it all. This is especially true for behaviors. “When you inconvenience someone with a change, they may go out of their way to avoid adopting it, even when it may be the best solution for them,” (What Happens, N.D.). This is why societal impacts and perception is so important in driving positive behavioral health change for the better.
There are many other changes that could be done in order to promote better health. One of them is also mass media. By educating using mass media, more people (who have access to tv, internet, phone, newspaper, radio etc.) can get information on certain things. The media can definitely us this to the advantage if used properly to promote better and healthier behaviors. “Mass media interventions that seek to influence people indirectly—by creating beneficial changes in the places (or environments) in which people live and work—have equal if not greater potential to promote beneficial changes in population health behaviors,” (The Effectiveness, 2008). I can understand the media being a huge influence on people, especially children. If they are able to use that for the betterment of people’s health, that would be amazing. An example would be smoking cigarettes. There are thousands of dollars poured into ads every year to promote them, but with the media and how some are able to turn it around to reduce the amount of cigarettes smoked is pretty incredible. “Most anti-smoking campaigns take the approach of using scare tactics. Aetna turned this on its head by taking a positive spin on the subject. For every cigarette you smoke, it costs you 11 minutes of life so giving up a cigarette could give you back 11 minutes of life — Aetna and Ogilvy & Mather wanted to make them memorable so they created Machine 11,” (Fascetti, 2016). When ads or the mass media are mindful and take into account what they can do in order to promote change positively, it really does send a message across.
Then there are other ways to promote healthy behavior changes through social media, education, etc. It is really incredible how much influence people can have on others and how much something can influence them in return. I have always found it interesting that behaviors by people are mostly affected by how others perceive them. But for me personally, I do believe that the biggest influence on others to change their behavior is by other people doing certain things, such as my example of wearing masks, making others realize that it’s okay to wear masks and that you won’t look strange.
For myself personally, I find that I am most influenced by my peers and family. Just recently, I was told that in order to wait out this corona virus situation, a family member of mine started growing a garden. Personally, I would never ever think to grow a garden, especially to eat, but after listening to her talk about how fun it was and how she can grow things organically and control what she puts in her body, it really motivated me. I made my husband take me to our local mom and pops garden shop the next day and bought a bunch of herbs and vegetables to grow, Honestly, it was so much fun and I really enjoy going outside and picking fresh cilantro or basil from our garden and making salsa or a stir fry. As I mentioned earlier, it is my opinion that others have a stronger influence on you to change or to do something than anything else. You can get as much education as you can, you can get as much support as you can, you can push yourself to the limit, but if you do not want to change and if there aren’t people there to positively influence you, changing your behavior to a better and healthier one will be much more difficult. What do you think?
Reference:
Behaviour Change Models and Strategies, (2014, July 1). Eufic. Retrieved from
https://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/motivating-behaviour-change
Fascetti, T. (2016, April 13). Guidemark Health’s Fascetti on Ads that Change Behavior. Retrieved from
Skolnik, R. (2020). Global Health 101, 4th Edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Burlington, Massachusetts.
The Effectiveness of Mass Communication to Change Public Behavior. (2008, January 3). Annual review. Retrieved from
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090824
What Happens When People Are Not Ready for Change? (N.D.) Enclaria. Retrieved from
https://www.enclaria.com/2019/08/08/what-happens-when-people-are-not-ready-for-change/