Social-Ecological Approach
This 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 efforts 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.
Alcalay, Rina & Bell, Robert "Promoting Nutrition and Physical Activity Through Social Marketing", 2000: page 22 - click here.
Comments
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
Agree with Allison's
Agree with Allison's comments.
health and illness theories
very good illustration
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