Psychology

According to Edberg (2009), Social psychology is mainly concerned with how individuals and their ways of thinking interrelate with one another as well as the social surrounding. Health behavior is a compound process that is influenced by social factors. This makes social psychological approach of health behavior a very important matter in public health. Social influence for example, influence from those in authority is an aspect that the practitioners should understand. The general public tends to obey the words of people who are perceived as having some sort of power than others, practitioners included. Attitudes and behavior of a person are other aspects of social psychology that would be important for practitioners to understand. Considering the diversity of the patient population, it is a great idea to understand health beliefs, practices, and ways of interacting with different patients in the society. This will greatly aid in the development of treatment and health promotion programs.

Anthropology is concerned with the role past and present events plays in human behavior, organization of life patterns and schemes of beliefs and knowledge. It is important for practitioners to understand social psychology because it has various influences on public health. Social structure and class affect the general life of the individual. For example, a person of a particular class will live to the standards of that class and his or her general health will be determined by the provisions of that class. The capital obtained by a certain social setting heavily determines the type of healthcare that a person from that group will be accorded. Social organization also plays a very important role in the way labor is divided among members. Hard labor to some individuals may affect their health adversely. Influence from various social groups may determine the health behavior of a person.

Edberg (2009), states that health behavior conceptualization is heavily influenced by human ecology. The ecological model comprise of environmental factors, individual factors, and social cultural factors. Ecological model is the common structure for understanding health behavior in public health. Ecology deals with the study of living organisms and their function within a particular system. Ecology has helped us understand that some organisms thrive in the system of other organisms. It has also helped in the realization that the absence of some organisms can affect the host system. In these aspects, human beings have been viewed as organisms living in the general environment. It is therefore important to develop health promotion programs within the concept of ecological model because the existence of human being cannot be taken as separate from the surroundings in which they live. The way living organisms conduct themselves and their lives occur within systems that are not dependent.