Psycho-social and Behavioral Aspects of Chronic Disease
Disease prevention is a key concern for public health professionals. Preventing chronic disease is often difficult due to factors that are beyond the control of health professionals.
For instance, research has indicated that certain types of cancer, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, and other chronic diseases are influenced by genetic factors in addition to-and perhaps as much as-environmental and lifestyle factors. Thus, as a public health professional, it is important to consider the difficulties in preventing and treating chronic diseases.
In this Discussion, you explore psycho-social and behavioral factors faced by patients with chronic diseases. You consider several scenarios related to various aspects of chronic disease and provide recommendations for how to address those aspects. Also, you identify challenges that might arise with your recommendations and how those challenges could be managed.
To prepare for this Discussion,
Review this week's Learning Resources on chronic and non-communicable diseases. Consider the psycho-social and behavioral factors that impact patients with these diseases.
Select one of the scenarios from the Week 4 Discussion Scenarios (located in this week's Learning Resources). Identify the main psycho-social and/or behavioral aspects of the scenario.
Consider the role of public health practitioners and health professionals in addressing the behavioral aspects of chronic illness.
Post which scenario you selected and provide a brief summary of the psycho-social factors that influence the health behavior and the disease. Then explain how public health strategies or interventions could be used to address the psycho-social factors you identified.
Include in your explanation the challenges associated with these strategies or inventions, and how the challenges can be addressed.
Finally, explain why it is important for health professionals and public health practitioners to understand how psycho-social factors impact disease.