Psychology

There are many factors that increase the level of peoples exposure or risk to diseases. Some of them may be environmental, others may be physical while others are social. The human factors include attitudes that people usually have concerning a disease or a certain mode of medication, their cultural beliefs that may bar them from seeking medication and some behaviors that are likely to make them more susceptible to contraction of various diseases. This paper is a research into the risks posed by these factors that can be reduced through the use of sound decision making and professional intervention methods.

A risk factor is something that influences ones chances of getting a disease or increases the chances of the already contracted disease getting serious (Mainer, 1999). Different diseases have risk factors that are diverse. Having a risk factor does not always imply that you will get the ailment. There are those who may be exposed to the risk factors but will not get the disease. There are many kinds of risk factors. Some can be changed while others cannot. The risks can be physiological, environmental or even social. Environmental factors include the weather and other atmospheric conditions. Physiological factors include body conditions like fatigue, stress and depression, while social or human factors that can expose one to the risks of a disease include the belief systems, the attitudes, life styles and behaviors. Things like heredity, age or even race which can be risk factors for certain diseases cannot be changed while others like behavioral risk factors can be changed (Mainer, 1999). Some risk factors are more influential than others.

Most diseases that human beings suffer from are not that serious if the proper intervention or mitigation measures are put in place. There are hundreds of HIV AIDS patients who have survived with the disease for more than twenty years and are still going on strong. Others have survived with numerous diseases that are considered very deadly for many years. Yet others die within years or months of contacting the same kind of disease. Of interest in this research paper are these social factors that can increase peoples vulnerability to various diseases and how these social factors can be tackled to reduce the health risks they pose.

Introduction
This paper will start by looking at the various behaviors, beliefs and attitudes that increase peoples susceptibility to a disease. It will make a deep analysis of each factor, giving concrete evidence to support the claim and where possible, case examples will be used. For each factor, the paper will suggest professional mechanisms that can be put in place to mitigate the risks they pose. The paper will then give a summary and some recommendations.

Behavioral Factors and Techniques to Reduce Their Risks
There are various techniques that can be used to reduce the risks exposed to some of the serious diseases by behavior and lifestyle. Breast cancer is one of the diseases whose risks can be reduced by changing the behaviors and lifestyles among women. To start with, the current social set up has led to late bearing of children by women. This is because most of them focus on their education and career development and they relegate childbearing to later years (Mainer, 1999)  Breast cancer research has found out that women who bear their first offspring while they are past the age of thirty have higher exposure to breast cancer than those who became pregnant at an earlier age. Pregnancy is known to reduce the number of a womans menstrual cycles which reduces the risk by far. The technique that can be used is the encouragement of women to balance their academic, career and family life. This may be a contentious technique because there are those women who opt not to give birth at all, but those who have plans of giving birth should be encouraged to start doing it before the age of thirty.

Just like early giving birth of children reduces the number of menstrual cycles in a woman thus reducing the risk to breast cancer, breastfeeding the babies for a long period of time also minimizes the risk to breast cancer in the same way. This means that women who do not breast feed their children also increase ones risk to breast cancer. Breast milk is very important especially in the early growth stages of a child and women should be encouraged to breast feed their children for a considerable amount of time because breastfeeding benefits both the mother and the child (Mainer, 1999).

Research has also indicated that the women who take the oral birth control pills have higher susceptibility to breast cancer than those who have never tried to use them. The risk declines if the use of the pills is halted (Mainer, 1999). Women should be advised by professionals in the health field on the issue of using these pills because on one side the pills may be beneficial but on the other side they are a risk factor. There should also be a lot of awareness being raised by the medical professionals regarding the usage of the pills, but this rarely happens because these medical professional are still the entrepreneurs that own the chemists and the pharmacies that sell these pills, meaning that raising the awareness will affect their business proceeds. This is where the dilemma lies.

The use of the post hormonal therapy may prevent diseases like oesteroporosis but it increases ones risk to breast cancer. In fact, it increases the chances of not only contracting the disease, but dying early from it (Mainer, 1999). One can die within two years of contracting breast cancer if she has been using this therapy. It reduces the effectiveness of any intervention methods, including the use of mammograms. The risk can be reduced if the intake of drugs is stopped. This is an area that professionals in the medical field should be very serious in addressing. This is because it is one of the highest risks that can lead to the deadly malady that is breast cancer. Professional advice should be given especially to the high risk groups. There are no strong reasons why women should use the post menopausal therapy apart from relieving menopausal symptoms that is very short term. Women and medical professionals should focus on the long term deadly risks they pose and not the short term relief they create. The decision to use these therapies should be made after serious consultation with medical expert who will weigh the potential risks and benefits before prescribing the use and if it is prescribed, it is imperative that the medical experts settle on the lowest possible dosage.
 
Obesity is a condition that is known to cause a wide variety of diseases. These include Diabetes, Hypertension, Heart and Coronary diseases, High Blood Pressure, Stroke and even some forms of Cancers (Anton, 2002). Most of the factors that expose ones risk to this condition are behavioral. Consumption of food with high caloric contents coupled with a lot of inactivity has led to the rapid upsurge of the cases of obesity, especially in the United States of America. Currently, almost 20 percent of the American population is obese, with the state having the least cases of obesity having 17 percent (Roberts, 2005).

There are some techniques that can be used to reduce the risks to this disease. The techniques cover how people can avoid being obese and also how those who are obese can go back to normal life. One of the techniques that can reduce the risks posed by obesity is raising the awareness on the eating habits that can control the development of this condition. Public health officers should conduct awareness campaigns that will inform people of the need to watch their weight by eating the right food (Anton, 2002). People should be encouraged to move away from overconsumption of the high caloric food that exposes them to the development of this condition. Most of the junk food that people consume belongs to this category (Mainer, 1999). People should also be encouraged to undertake physical exercises, especially in our time when technology has made everything easy. There are washing machines and dishwashers at home such that people do not engage in simple physical activities like washing, vehicles are there to drive them even the shortest distances while the buildings have escalators to use instead of stairs. Encouraging people to go back to the basics of physical activities like walking to work or town, using stairs, doing these simple home duties and getting involved in physically involving leisure activities is a technique that can be used to reduce the risks posed to all the numerous diseases caused by obesity.

Beliefs, Attitudes and Techniques to Reduce the Risks
Beliefs and attitudes among cultures can pose a risk to certain diseases. Recent studies in America showed that women diagnosed with breast cancers in most African countries are years younger than their American counterparts (Mainer, 1999). The disease at the time of diagnosis in African women is usually at an advanced stage. One of the factors attributed for this grave scenario is the belief systems in Africa that make the women not to seek medical attention.

Most women interviewed during the research said that generally, most African women are not comfortable with the process of breast examination. This is because, in most places in Africa, touching breasts is highly considered as a sexual act and the women themselves avoid touching their breasts even in their own privacy. The women also had a negative attitude towards the breast cancer therapy of mastectomy (Mainer, 1999). This is because there is an African belief in reincarnation people are told that they must die with their body intact because during reincarnation, they will return to life with those parts missing. The disfiguration as a result of breast mastectomy carries much stigma and the person might be alienated by the society. This is why most African women with breast cancer never disclose their ailment to others for the fear of rejection, while this only exposes them to risks because when the disease is discovered at a stage that is not advanced, it is possible to minimize these risks.

Techniques of ensuring that the risks of breast cancer are reduced, especially among the African population, should start with media awareness giving up to date guidelines on mitigation and control measures of the disease. There is evidence that Africans are underserved when it comes to education and medication for breast cancer, something that has exposed them to the dire risks of the disease. There should be funding of anthropological models of research in order to unearth the cultural belief systems and attitudes that may have an influence on the understanding of symptom presentation of breast cancer, the risks perceived and the impediments to early detection of the disease especially among African women (Mainer, 1999). They should be educated on the importance of screening, mastectomy and other guidelines that may reduce their risk to the disease.

Some African women believe that the disease is a western one that cannot affect the Africans, meaning that most of them stay with the disease without knowing. All the preventive techniques should address all these defeatist notions and the women should vividly see the need to seek the help of an expert in the medical field and to undergo regular check ups so that if the disease is detected in early stages, the risks posed can be reduced.

Another disease whose risks posed to human beings because of their attitudes and belief systems is the HIVAIDS. In some African communities, there is a belief that if a man dies, the brother of the man is supposed to inherit his wife (Mainer, 1999). This is a belief that has sent thousands of Africans to grave because of the risk it exposes them to contraction of HIVAIDS. When a man dies, and the people are not even sure of the cause of the death then his brother proceeds to inherit the wife, there are chances that if the man had died of AIDS, then the inheriting brother is exposing himself to the disease. This is one of the customs and belief systems that should be fought. Awareness on the gravity of these belief systems should be preached in order to reduce the exposure to the risks of contracting the disease. There is another belief that the physiological structure of men reduces their chances of contracting HIVAIDS (Mainer, 1999). This is one of the factors that make them indulge in sexual activities even with the high risk groups, thus exposing them to the disease. Some of these attitudes should be defeated by expertly raising the awareness in a way that any practice that exposes a person even to the least risk is discouraged.

Summary and Recommendations
It is very important for the health professionals not to ignore the influence of behavior, beliefs and attitudes in exposing people to a wide range of diseases. One of the mitigation and risk reduction techniques is through raising of awareness on some of these risk factors that continue to endanger the lives of the people. The work of the medical professionals and public health officials is not just to cure diseases they should dedicate their energies toward prevention and minimizing the risks that people are exposed to.