HS305 (THEORIES OF HEALTH BEHAVIORS)

The Experience

This class which I took during the fall of 2019, was interesting and fun. It centrally focused on the theories behind effective behavior change and practical ways for implementation. In this course, I learned about what drives a person to behavior change and how intervention can be used. This class taught me that an intervention for facilitating a behavior change can be effective when the target audience and setting had been determined. The health belief model , which focuses on the factors that affect someones willingness to engage in a health behavior. This includes perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action and self-efficacy. This made me realize the importance of perception in engaging in a healthy behavior and maintaining the healthy behavior. It helped me to not only understand my tendencies but also those closest to me. The assignment that stood out for me and allowed me to truly understand the importance of perception was the Theory into Action paper. For this assignment, I was to select a specific health behavior that I wanted to change and to develop an intervention that would be effective for treating the behavior. My chosen topic was distracted driving. Through writing this paper I realized that maintaining health and well-being includes choosing who we surround ourselves with. The environment can influence what types of behavior we choose to engage in and that the behavior itself can alter our environment. Its bi-directional. I learned about this through the term reciprocal determinism, which had been introduced to us during the class. Specifically with self-efficacy, I realized that I am sometimes unwillingly to change a behavior because I believe that I don’t have the necessary resources to do so or because there are barriers that inhibit me from better change. I also learned the need for motivation and the power of motivational interviewing. It made me more attentive to objective truths about engaging in health behaviors rather than my own bias which has helped me to stay on the road to good health and thus fulfilling the learning outcome!