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Average Rating: 3.18 out of 5 (22 ratings submitted)
Social-Ecological ApproachTheory SummaryThis theory provides a way of thinking about the planning of health promotion interventions that places a spotlight on the relationship between environmental and behavioural determinants of health. This relationship is reciprocal; the environment affects health-related behaviours, and people can, through their actions, affect the environment.  This approach assumes that our health is shaped by many environmental subsystems, including our family, community, workplace, cultural beliefs and traditions, economics, the physical world, and our web of social relationships. Health promotion efforst must thus be comprehensive, addressing those systems that adversely affect the person's capacity for living healthily. People should be expected to behave differently in different environments. An individual's behavioural predispositions may vary with situation because the situation is partially responsible for those predispositions. In addition, people have different capacities for action in varying environments because environments differ in the resources they provide to individuals. Furthermore, the reinforcements we receive for a particular action may be quite different across contexts - even potentially being positive in one environment and negative in another. SourceAlcalay, Rina & Bell, Robert "Promoting Nutrition and Physical Activity Through Social Marketing", 2000: page 22 - click here for the PDF version of this paper. Placed on the Communication Initiative site July 15 2003 Last Updated July 29 2003 How useful did you find the knowledge and contacts on this page to your work? Post your comments (review comments from others below):COMMENTS POSTED |
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AIDS risk reduction mmmodel (ARRM)
this page was very useful as a starting point
Very good overview, but I need more detail
I find this review to be very simplistic and naive. It should be pulled of the web and rewritten by a cultural ecologist specializing in health promotion. I direct the reader to the following sources:
Green L. L Richard, L Potvin. Ecological foundations of health promotion. Amer J of Health Promotion. 1996 March/April 10, (4): 271-281.
McElroy, KR, D Bibeau, A Steckler, K Glanz. An ecological perspective on health promotion program. Health Ed Q 1988 15(4):351-377.
The Social Ecology of Health Promotion: Implications for Research and Practice Daniel Stokols, Judd Allen, and Richard L. Bellingham. Introductory article published in a special issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion featuring "Social Ecological Perspectives on Health Promotion", 1996, Volume 10, pp. 247-251.
I am more than happy to arrange to have this section rewritten. I am a medical anthropologist that employs a cultural ecological perspective in my health promotion work internationally.
Allison Bingham, Ph.D.
PATH
abingha@path.org
Nice and simple. This makes for a useful paradigm.